Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
The Place of Imperialism in History
We have seen that imperialism is, in its economic essence, monopolist capitalism. Its historic place is determined by this fact, for monopoly born out of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition of the capitalist social order to a higher order. We must notice especially four chief aspects of monopolies, or four chief manifestations of capitalist monopoly, which are characteristic of the period under review.
(1) Monopoly has grown up out of the concentration of production at a very advanced stage of the latter's development. This is illustrated in the case of monopolist capitalist unions: combines, syndicates and trusts. We have seen the large part that in plays in modern economic life. At the beginning of the 20th century, monopolies have acquired complete supremacy in the advanced countries. And if the first steps towards the formation of the combines were earlier made by countries enjoying the protection of high tariffs (Germany, America), Britain, with her system of free trade, has shown, only a little later, the same fact, namely, the birth of monopoly out of the concentration of production.
(2) Monpolies have led to the intensive seizure of the most important sources of raw materials, especially for the coal and iron industry, which is the principal industry of capitalist society and that over which the trusts have the greatest control. The exercise of monopoly over the most important sources of raw materials has terribly increased the power of big capital, and has sharpened the antagonism between productions which is in the hand of the trusts, and production which is not.
(3) Monopoly has sprung from the banks. These have developed into the monopolists of finance-capital out of modest intermediaries. Some three or five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost capitalist countries have achieved the "personal union" of industrial and banking capital, and concentrated in their hands the disposal of thousands upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and revenue of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, imposing an infinite number of financial ties of dependence upon all the economic and political institutions of contemporary capitalist society without exception—such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly.
(4) Monopoly has grown out of colonial policy. To the numerous "old" motives of colonial policy the capitalist financier has added the struggle for the sources of raw materials, for the exportation of capital, for "spheres of influence," i.e., for spheres of good business, concessions, monopolist profits, and so on); in fine, for economic territory in general. When the European powers did not as yet occupy with their colonies a tenth part of Africa (as was the case in 1876), colonial policy was able to develop otherwise than by the methods of monopoly—by "free grabbing" of territories, so to speak. But when nine-tenths of Africa been seized (towards 1900), when the whole world had been shared out, the period of colonial monopoly opened and as a result the period of bitterest struggle for the partition and the re-partition of the world.
It is known in general how much monopolist capital has deepened all the inherent contradictions of capitalism. It is enough to mention the high cost of living and the yoke of the trusts. This deepening of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the definite victory of finance-capital.
Monopolies, oligarchy, the tendency towards domination instead of the tendency towards liberty, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by an extremely small minority of the richest or most powerful nations—all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which oblige us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the "Bondholding (Rentier) State," the usurer State, in which the bourgeoisie lives on the exportation of capital and on the "clipping of interest coupons." It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay excludes the possibility of the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. Separate branches of production, different strata of the bourgeoisie, and individual countries display with more or less strength in the imperialist period one or other of these tendencies. In a general way capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before, but this growth is becoming more and more irregular, and the irregularity is showing itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (such as England).
In regard to the rapidity of Germany's economic development, Riesser, the author of investigations on the great German banks, states: "The progress of the preceding period (1848-1870), itself not so slow, may be compared to the rapidity of the development of all German economy, and in particular, of the banks, during the period under consideration (1870-1905), in much the same way as the speed of a post-chaise of the good old days can be compared with that of the modern automobile which moves so fast that it becomes a danger to the careless pedestrian and to the passengers." In its turn, this finance-capital, which has grown great with such speed, is not unwilling (precisely because it has grown so quickly) to pass on to a more "tranquil" enjoyment of colonies which call for conquest—and not only by peaceful methods—from richer nations. In the United States, the economic development of late years has been far quicker than in Germany, and just thanks to this has brought into high relief the parasitic character of modern American capitalism. On the other hand, the comparison even of the republican American bourgeoisie with the monarchical Japanese or German shows that the greatest political differences become insignificant during the imperialist period—not because they are unimportant in general, but because throughout it is a case of a bourgeoisie with definite traits of parasitism.
The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists of one of the numerous branches of industry, of one of the numerous countries, etc., gives them the economic possibility of corrupting individual sections of the working class and sometimes a fairly considerable minority, attracting them on to the side of the capitalists of a given industry or nation, against all the others. The deepening of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the partition of the world, increases the importance of this fact. And so there is created the bond between imperialism and opportunism, which has revealed itself first and most clearly in England, thanks to the fact that certain characteristics of imperialist development have been observable much sooner than in other countries.
From all that has been said in this book on the economic nature of imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely, as dying capitalism. It is very instructive in this respect to note that the bourgeois economists, describing modern capitalism, employ with great fluency such terms as "interlacing," "absence of isolation," etc.; the banks are "enterprises which by their objective and their course of development have a character not purely economic, but are departing more and more from the sphere of private economic management." And the same Riesser, to whom these last words belong, declares with the greatest seriousness that the "prophecy" of the Marxists concerning "socialisation" has not been realised!
What then is the meaning of this word "interlacing"? It embraces only the most striking aspect of the process being accomplished before our eyes. It shows that the observer cannot see the wood for the trees. It slavishly follows the obvious, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals him as a man overwhelmed by raw materials and entirely incapable of understanding its meaning and importance. Ownership of shares and relations between owners of private property "mingle in a haphazard way." But beneath this interlacing, what constitutes its very base are the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise becomes gigantic and, working on the basis of exact computation of mass data, systematically organises the supply of primary raw materials, to the extent of two-thirds, or three-fourths of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people: when the transport of these raw materials to the most suitable places of production, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away: when a central control directs all the successive stages of work right up to the manufacture of a number of varieties of finished articles: when the distribution of these products is made on a uniform plan among tens and hundreds of millions of consumers (as in the case of the distribution of oil in America and Germany by the American "Standard Oil")—then it becomes evident that we are in the presence of a socialisation of production, and not at all a simple "interlacing"; that private economic relations, and private property relations, constitute an outer covering no longer suitable to its contents, a covering which must of necessity begin to decay if its destruction be postponed by artificial means; a covering which will be able to keep going quite a long time in a state of rottenness (putting things at the worst, if the cure of the opportunist abcess is put off for long), but which nevertheless will inevitably be got rid of.
The enthusiastic admirer of German imperialism, Schulze-Gaevernitz, exclaims:
"If the direction of the German banks rests in the long run with a dozen persons, their activity is nowadays more important for the public good than that of the majority of the Ministers of State." (The "interlacing" of the bankers, the ministers, the directors of industry, the bondholders, is here completely forgotten). "If we logically think out the course of development of the tendencies which we have noticed, we arrive at this conclusion, that the money capital of the nation is united in the banks; the banks are bound between themselves by combines; the capital of the investing nations has been cast in the shape of securities.
"Thus the brilliant prophecies of Saint-Simon are fulfilled. 'The present anarchy of production due to the fact that economic relations are developing without uniform regulation, must give place to organisation of production. Production will be directed not by chiefs of businesses independent of each other and and ignorant of man's economic needs, but by a special institution. The central committee of control, being able to consider the large field of social economy from a more elevated point of view, will regulate it in such a way that it will be useful to the whole of society, will be able to put the means of production into suitable hands, and above all will occupy itself more particularly with maintaining constant harmony between production and consumption. Certain establishments have assumed as part of their task a certain organisation of economic labour: these are the banks.' We are still far from the fulfilment of these prophecies of Saint-Simon, but we are on the way. It is Marxism, different from what Marx represents it, but different only in form."
There is nothing more to be said: a fine "refutation" of Marx which takes a step backward—from his precise scientific analysis to the guesswork of Saint Simon: the guesswork of genius, but guesswork all the same.