Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumBeyond Imperialism? Have We Reached a New Stage of Capitalism?
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/beyond-imperialism-have-we-reached-a-new-stage-of-capitalism/In 1917 Lenin published a penetrating analysis of the development of capitalism, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. In it he described how the emergence of finance and monopoly capital enabled the great powers to exploit colonial empires, exporting finance capital to the periphery, while super-profits accruing to the capitalist center permitted the bribing of a very narrow labor aristocracy who could divert revolutionary action from the centers working class along reformist lines.1 The theory pointed to the emergence of new revolutionary potential in the world classes of the colonial world as they struggled to overthrow both colonialism and the capitalist imperialism underlying it; thus, imperialism contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. This theory fit well the emergence of national liberation struggles in the colonial world through the mid-1970s. However, from 1970 onward we have seen developments in the structure and praxis of capitalism which call into question whether the underlying model fits the current stage of capitalist development. Among these developments four are particularly characteristic: the hyperfinancialization of capital, the fusion of ownership and management at the highest levels of capital, capitalisms cannibalization of invested public labor through privatization recapitulating key facets of the earlier process of primitive accumulation, and the emergence of external, environmental constraints on capitalisms ability to accumulate and reproduce.
When Hilferding (1912, 283) and Lenin (1939, 47) emphasized the emergence of finance capital in the late decades of the nineteenth century, they saw it in terms of the transformation of the banking sector into industrial capitalists:
This bank capital, i.e., capital in money form which is thus really transformed into industrial capital, I call finance capital . Finance capital is capital controlled by bank and employed by industrialists.
However, the first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed the hyperfinancialization of capital. While there is evidence that this phenomenon began in the U.S. as early as the late 1970s, in 2000 it was dramatically displayed as profits of the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector substantially exceeded those of the manufacturing sector. This trend has widened in the U.S. in every succeeding year with the exception of 2008.
This development in the structure and praxis of global capitalism has created a substantial rentier subsector of the ruling class which is especially interested in pursuing policies which extract value from productive enterprises. What Marx described as fictitious capital (Marx 1998, 397 passim) has become a key element in the ruling class preference for austerity policies. Interest, other forms of debt service, and land rents constitute some of the various forms of fictitious capital; what distinguishes fictitious capital from money-capital per se is that it is not intended to fund the process of capitalist reproduction, but rather to merely be relent to meet or to speculate in the obligations of other fictitious capital. In this respect hyperfinancialization results in a fundamental disconnect between fictitious capital and capitalist reproduction and is qualitatively quite different from previous stages of finance capital. The extent to which the proceeds of the rentier sector are no longer invested to any degree in industrial production is striking.
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I haven't read the entire piece yet, but I've met and talked to the author on more than one occasion and everything he does is superlative. A brilliant mind.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)the RATE of profit falls in capital invested in production because of technological improvements leading to more goods produced and a lower rate of profit per unit, if it can find a venue that makes MORE profit than production (like financial instruments) that's where it will go.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)that's why blaming the crisis on finance and greedy financiers is missing the forest for the trees. which is not to say that ppl who work in finance aren't probably awful.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)agitational material. They're the LITERAL poster children for capitalism.
tech3149
(4,452 posts)Capitalism has reached its end stages. It has reached its logical conclusion that could be considered cancer capitalism. It is trying so hard to sustain itself that it has to consume everything that would allow it to continue to exist.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)That section on auto-phagic accumulation reminded me of something Chris Hedges said in one of those videos. Basically America is over, the corporations know it, and they are just grabbing everything they can on the way out the door. Including raiding the treasury if they can.
TBF
(31,919 posts)we know the "founding" of this country was essentially a land grab by Europeans in which indigenous folks were killed, run off their lands, and to this date are contained in "reservations". Freedom from the start has meant white protestant males hoarding all of the capital they can get their hands on (via any means possible). We had a period of time from roughly 1930-80 in which the ruling class played with "democracy" (and that was only in response to socialists like Eugene Debs putting pressure on them) and some re-distribution of wealth but nothing that couldn't be reined in when they tired of it.
As the author advises the ruling classes have now taken their show on the road. As we've talked about before, this means workers everywhere need to rise up against these fascists. Occupy sort of got it - at least the workers in other countries who saw the discord brewing over here and held up their solidarity signs. They get it. Not so sure how long it will take here ... killing the tv's might help.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)It did open up space for the discussion of class though, and sharpened struggle against monopolies. People are talking more about corporate "welfare" and CEO pay, etc. Before it looked like people were just going to go meekly into austerity. But Occupy (at least in Oakland) is beginning to pit itself against the political arena. Only unity of activism *and* an electoral alignment are a path to mass involvement opposing fascism. We have to go to where people are--and workers still vote: that's where they are.
Workers last week rallied for a Second Bill of Rights, it didn't get much coverage in the MSM.
AFL-CI0 president Richard Trumka said it best for labor and the people with these words. "work defines us. Work is who we are. But hard work alone never led to decent wages and retirement. It takes hard work---and activism."
And so it does. And so it will, if we are to revitalize the movement which defeated the Republican Right decisively in 2008, create a balance of political forces that will advance a Second Bill of Rights program in legislation, and, one should not forget, defeat the forces that Franklin Roosevelt warned the nation about in 1944, as victory approached in WWII, if "rightist reaction triumphed in postwar America "it is certain that even as we would have defeated our enemies abroad, we would have yield to the spirit of fascism at home."
I know it doesn't seem as dramatic as Tahir Square or Red flags over the Parthenon, but this is workers' struggle too.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)But that doesn't mean anything is over. Big issues like income inequality raise opposition and the opposition takes various forms and comes in waves. The Wisconsin protests were the first wave and Occupy was the second. There will be more. I expect the next to be even more militant than Occupy.
The only thing that would stop this progression of resistance is if the capitalists toned down their naked power grab. Anybody really think THAT'S gonna happen?
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)(I just had Occupy Oakland on the brain when I wrote that. They've been "Occupying" the Obama campaign offices--in Oakland. That isn't going to appeal to the masses, to say the least. It's almost shark-jumpingly levels of bad. And I was an OO booster last all last year.)
I think the resistance is definitely going to ramp up. I just wanted to throw into the mix that labor is being militant too, but perhaps not in a way that looks dramatic or attracts media attention.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)One thing to ALWAYS remember about the Trumpka's of the labor movement is that they are (almost) ALWAYS ultimately on the side of the capitalists. Their job is to preserve the system by allowing the workers to blow off a little steam and get a few more crumbs. NOT to take the system down and grab the whole cake.
I suspect that 2014 will be pretty hectic with the ILWU contract talks. That could get pretty nasty.
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)Making labor choose leaders, preventing labor from changing leaders without having to jump through hoops, banning wildcat strikes (NLRB paved the way).
We'll see what happens. Interesting times ahead.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)They are collaborationists, nothing more.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)I seem to remember him leading a mineworkers strike that violated T-H or some other labor laws, so he apparently can be PUSHED into some militant actions under certain circumstances.
That's actually what I mean by watching the labor bureaucracy/aristocracy. The best ones can be pushed into militant actions by the rank-and-file, but you've always got to watch them still because even when they're being pushed, they'll drag their feet as much as possible. The worst of them will collaborate with the class enemy and can only be pushed OUT. Of leadership positions that is. Either way, the rank-and-file have to watch them.
And BTW, I was a Shop Steward back when dinosaurs ruled and was on the Executive board of another union. I'm not saying I WAS one of those union "leaders" who needed to be watched (but I wouldn't have minded the oversight, it would have kept me honest), but who knows what temptations would have lurked in the future?
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)...technological revolution.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4290/
It's going to get real, real soon, they were not shut down, they are merely taking a breather.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)and that which is about to happen, but never that which is happening." - Deleuze
tama
(9,137 posts)Spectacles of mass demonstrations are important, but grass roots organization - neighborhood assemblies, alternative public services etc. etc. social networks of mutual support are where the the real work is being done. To amused astonishment of American Occupy visitor, A Greek activist was depressed that only 50 percent of Athenians resisted the electric bill tax by refusing to pay, while neighborhood assemblies made the government threat immaterial by returning electricity every time government tried to cut it.
To my understanding Occupy or activist networks born from Occupy - naming is not an issue - are working very hard to build grassroots self-organization, determination and sense of empowerment towards Greek levels, but it's a long way.
And as a friendly "red-bait" challenge, that work is what anarchist comrades are doing more than Marxist and reformist comrades, and all the help is welcome.
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)We'll look down on them and see what pitiful experiments they were.
TBF
(31,919 posts)borders between countries are like other boundaries - meant to constrain.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)like the way i don't want a stranger at the library reading over my shoulder. is that reactionary.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)Is there one? To withdraw from the world market, as Samir Amin advises Third World Countries to do, in a curious revival of the fascist 'economic solution'? Or might it be to go in the opposite direction? To go further still, that is, in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization? For perhaps the flows are not yet deterritorialized enough, not decoded enough, from the viewpoint of a theory and practice of a highly schizophrenic character. Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to 'accelerate the process,' as Nietzsche put it: in this matter, the truth is that we havent seen anything yet."
- Anti-Oedipus
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I have to admit, I don't know what any of that means. I read postmodernism in grad school, but it never took with me.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)i can't bring myself to take it seriously . i don't feel like an intellectual failure if i dont get parts of it the way i do with other things
i *suspect* deleuze & guattari here are talking about pushing capitalism to its limits. accelerating the dialectic, sharpening the antagonisms, etc. like some ppl think the PRC is doing: undermining the US in a way they never would have been able to militarily, had they stayed off the capitalist road.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Chernyshevsky's ideas were heavily influenced by Alexander Herzen, Vissarion Belinsky, and Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. He saw class struggle as the means of society's forward movement and advocated for the interests of the working people. In his view, the masses were the chief maker of history. He is reputed to have used the phrase "the worse the better", to indicate that the worse the social conditions became for the poor, the more inclined they would be to launch a revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Chernyshevsky
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I see that now. I'm not sure I agree with that view though. There's probably a certain threshold above which that could be so, but when people are pushed down below to the point where there seems nothing to fight for, I think that inclination evaporates. Otherwise places like Somalia would be a hotbed of revolution.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Economic power becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, and eventually there is one great family standing with ultimate power. Imperialism becomes Caesarism. The tendency towards wealth concentration reaches it's logical end point.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Nice to see you around!
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)I too a break from DU, and got sucked into Reddit, LMAO!
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I made an account there long ago, but it's like a whole universe.