Get your own Free Home Page As it has been stated earlier, theories of monopoly capitalism and imperialism have not been dealt by Marx. They post date Marx, still they need to be analysed for they are deeply entrenched within post-Marx marxian and other tendencies.
Monopolies, monopoly capitalism, super profits, imperialism, economic-imperialism, eco-imperialism, etc. have figured in many attempts in this century at understanding and intervening in the social process. These theorisations have certain basics in common.
Monopoly capitalism, it is said, originated with the concentration and centralisation of capital. Big companies, cartels, alliances and combines were formed. Agreements were reached between big capitals to not to compete by lowering prices, i.e. price competition was abolished. These alliances took different forms ranging from gentlemen’s agreements to cartels to trusts and to total mergers. The process of concentration was also operating in banks for broadly similar reasons. These bigger players divided the spoils between themselves at the expense of the smaller players.
It is further said that the concentration of industrial capital and the formation of capitalist alliances, groups and trusts resulted in the establishment of de facto monopolies in a number of sectors of industry. A single firm or a small number of firms were in control of such a substantial slice of production that they could, over fairly long periods, fix prices, becoming independent of the state of business. Big financial groups controlled these companies. These financial groups also held controlling positions in banks, insurance companies, industrial, commercial and transport companies. Thereby the financial groups came to possess control over a large proportion of industrial and financial activity. These theories assert that the mechanism of price fixation, the "control" of the free flow of capital or the elimination of competition, enables monopolies to escape from the general equalisation of the rate of profit. In other words, they extract monopoly super profits, far above the average rate of profit. These super profits result from the raising of the selling price of products in the monopoly sectors above the price of production. This broadly is the description of the basics of the theories of monopoly capitalism.
Competition is not negated by the big companies or ‘monopolies’. Competition exists at various levels between firms, within branches of production, among these branches, within countries and regions, among countries and regions and blocs, etc. Monopolistic price-fixation of a necessary product and all its alternatives is an impossibility. In a sense, every product in the market competes against all other products because the market has a limit. Even though people cannot replace food with clothes for their needs, while buying they have to make choices as their wages are limited.
Competition, exchange and the value relations formed on their basis help explain the distribution of labour in a commodity economy. Theories of monopoly capitalism blatantly subvert the analyses of value relations i.e. they render impossible comprehension of the social distribution of labour in commodity economy. Furthermore, the basic mechanism of equilibration of social distribution of labour through competition in the market and the resultant price fluctuations are re-shrouded in mysticism, by a flourish of spurious facts.
Under certain circumstances, for a limited period of time, surplus profits may be and are realised. In the 19th century an individual owner of a factory who employed a new invention before it became generally used, undersold other competitors and yet sold the commodities above their individual price of production, and in the process realised the specifically higher productiveness of labour employed. Thereby a surplus profit was secured. However, the very nature of commdity production, of social distribution of labour through competition, breaks such barriers sooner rather than later. Capital does not tolerate monopolistic price fixation.
At a certain point in the development of commodity production credit system and banks appeared as humble entities engaged in the circulation of commodities but later they turned into powerful instruments in the process of centralisation, concentration and accumulation of capital. The strength of these institutions is a reflection of the extent of coagulation of wealth that eventuates within their realm. Through banks, financial institutions and credit system emerged various ways of transforming money into capital, without the direct involvement of the owners of money in the production process. With increasing scale of investments joint- stock production enterprises became the dominant form of enterprises rather than individual-owned enterprises. The advent of stock-capital and bank-loans provided the possibility of an enormous expansion of the scale of capitalistic enterprises. This was due to the fact that employment of capital could move beyond the narrow bounds of private ownership of means of production. This spelled the downfall of capitalism dominated by individual-owned enterprises.
However, theorisations trying to understand capital’s dynamics did not outgrow the concept of private-ownership. They tried to explain the activities of managers, directors of companies, banks and financial institutions and could see only conspiracies being hatched all around. The dynamics of commodity production was lost sight of. It is true that conspiracies were and are hatched through control over banks and financial institutions. But conspiracies do not explain the expansion process of commodity production. Underlying all conspiracies and political turmoil lies the dynamics of the process, the dynamics of the accumulation of capital . Post-Marx marxian propositions
Not having interest in grasping the logic of commodity production, these theories proceed from monopoly capitalism to imperialism. It is asserted that the age of monopoly capitalism rapidly becomes the age of the revival of colonialism. Grabbing foreign lands and closing them to foreign competition as markets for finished products, sources of raw material and cheap labour, or fields for capital investments, that is, as sources of super profits. This is what becomes the central theme of the foreign policy of capitalist countries from 1880 onwards. The basic division in the world was characterised as between oppressor and oppressed countries. And this was presented as theories of imperialism.
Colonies as being the source of raw material and markets for the end products for production enterprises situated in the imperialist centres has been given the status of the truth in most interpretations of history. To dissuade the proponents of such doctrines, some straightforward facts need to be pointed out. Before the turn of the eighteenth century, the colonial centres (like Amsterdam, Lisbon, Antwerp, Venice, London, Paris etc.) were basically thriving on trade and imported finished commodities from many areas. Areas in the Indian subcontinent (like Dacca, Surat, Calcutta, Calicut, Karachi etc.), for example, were major exporters of textiles to the English islands and net importers of silver. Before the advent of steam & coal based factory production, Western Europe and North America were not the most competitive manufacturing bases .
Only after the industrial revolution did this flow reverse. And even then the myth of manufacturing centre and agricultural hinterland has had no basis. No country is solely a supplier/consumer of raw materials or finished products. As an ironical twist, today a highly industrialised and "imperialist country" like USA can possibly be termed as "agricultural hinterland" of the world. The importance of super-profits as an explanation of imperialism also stands on flimsy ground. In 1983 the share of 65 countries (including China and India) which are supposedly under "imperialist grip", cumulatively did not add up to even six percent of the total global produce in value terms. What significance can be attached to "super profit" then? And search as you may, no country can be justifiably called "rentier state". Facts bite too deep into imperialism theory.
Obviously, a theory as pervasive as the imperialism theory does not lack a significant impact. Because, what it does is to shift the focus of analysis and mediation to the relations between factions of capital, primary among them being nations. Exploitation becomes a relation between strong and weak capitals, a relation between oppressor and oppressed nations. This theorisation calls for intervention in the social process on behalf of the weaker factions in their struggles against the stronger factions.
Mercantile activity had entraped semi-independent societies and inter-linked the world. It had created an economy at a global scale. Thenceforth, labour has been increasingly distributed as per global needs, needs judged through the filter of commodity relations. Produce increasingly takes the form of global produce and is parcelled out among various states, and within states. We have inherited an inter-linked and consequently interdependent world. Every article that we use is the congelation of labour of workers distributed throughout the globe.
Capital accumulates and grows, both extensively and intensively. It grows spatially in a direction where organic composition of capital is attractive, where either means of production and labour or any one of these is cheaper. Broadly, it grows towards a direction where the organic composition of capital is lower and rate of surplus value is higher. Factually, in general it spreads from all its established points towards all capitalistically underdeveloped locations. Capital which is a social relation has no nationality, no regionality and no continentality. Capital has neither a periphery nor a centre .
The extracted and realised surplus value is distributed globally, broadly in the form of interest, rent, taxes, cuts & commissions and profit. The surplus value added within a production unit, within a branch of production or within a nation is not the surplus value that finally is usurped by that production unit or that branch of production or that nation. Also, the surplus value that anyone of them get is not equal to the surplus value that they got produced in their domain. It can be said that surplus values coagulate as global surplus value and then its parcelling out takes place. Size of parcels depend on a number of factors and the prominent ones today can be gauged from the allround stress on human resource development, military spending, surveillance techniques, diplomacy, intensity of work, extension of working day, monetary & fiscal manipulations etc. Capitals get organised into factions and these factions of capital fight over distribution and redistribution of the realised surplus value, global surplus value. These inter and intra faction struggles engender various passionate and cynical political & cultural maneuverings.
This much is clear. So, to introduce concepts of oppressor and oppressed countries, super profits, right of nations to self determination, etc. as attempts to understand and analyse in fact legitimise and conceal the misanthropic intrigues of capital with a cloak of libertarian shibboleths. The growing accumulation of capital and marginalisation of simple commodity economy translate into extreme social discontent of wage-wokers and of the marginalised simple commodity producers. Riding on this wave of discontent, which is ultimately irresolvable under commodity economy, weaker factions of capital stake claims on political power to enhance their bargaining position vis-à-vis the world market. The struggles for political power which ensue take various ideo- logical forms like nationalism, sub-nationalism, tribalism, etc.
Compelled by the dynamics of capital, the sole driving motive of all established and emerging factions of capital is a bigger and larger parcel of global produce. This is translated at the faction level into extraction of more and more surplus value at the fastest possible rate. And thus by its very nature, establishment/sustenance of independent factions of capital is antagonistically related to wage-workers’ interests. Linking the struggles of weaker factions with the emancipatory project by theorizing on imperialism, neo-colonialism, and the right of nations to self determination is an unambiguous masquerade to hoodwink wage-workers and peasants & artisans. (Terms like late capitalism or post capitalism, though in vogue now-a- days, are not dealt here for they lack any political-economy basis).
The armed will of capital, the state apparatuses, play a significant role in the accumulation process. Capital in its onward march has destroyed all “outdated” institutions, anachronistic governments, social ties and knowledge systems not useful to it, and in all these its state apparatuses were the executing organs. Various kinds of state consolidations was its obvious outcome. On the other hand various factions emerged from within and without the existing state formations and contended for greater share of the global produce. Factions who grouped and re-grouped and maneuvered, competed and contended against all other emerging and established factions. From this cauldron of universal rivalry emerge various organised factions of capital, the new states with their varied legitimising ideologies. Ideologies whose prominent aim was and is to define the ‘other’, and to prove that killing was and is not murder when it occurred for the sake of the faction.
There is no gainsaying the fact that in history, the existence of alienated political power has always meant, to a larger or lesser extent, suppression of cultural and ethnic diversities. To struggle against this is within the libertarian project. But capital lies in ambush behind the apparent link up of cultural self-determination and establishment of state powers. Emancipation means spiritual self-determination of individuals, free from suppression and oppression, and free from the compulsions of necessity a total self development in the realm of freedom. And for this the basic pre-requisite is the absorption of power from state apparatuses back into society.
There exists a very powerful current in post-Marx marxian political economy which consciously or unconsciously works for the establishment and sustenance of weaker factions of capital by taking sides in inter-faction struggles. This is theoretically made possible by shifting the focus of analysis from production and reproduction of capital and wage- workers struggles to inter-faction rivalry. Theories of imperialism, neo-colonialism, direct and indirect domination/dependence, right of nations to self deter- mination are the obvious result. Endless debates on the definition of nationality; continuous construction, decons- truction and reconstruction of ethnic, cultural, religious, racial, regional and linguistic identities & traditions; development of synthetic history; and ruthless coercion of the working population (to keep the faction afloat in the world market) when in power, are the illustrious heritage and legacy of this powerful current. Marx’s critique of political economy became marxian political economy when its premises (chiefly, the fixation with private property and erroneous stress on it in characterising capital), with the unfolding of the social process, provided the ideological peg for the envisaged state capitalist solutions to social problems.
Critique of political economy, of marxian political economy, may appear to be dry stuff, but it needs to be grappled with if a meaningful intervention in the present is intended to make a non-market, non-coercive, non-hierarchical and a free society. Humanity today may appear to be a bit dazed by reality and drowned in hopelessness. But we are not lost and shall invent if we have not unlearned how to learn.
Marx’s critique of political economy concentrated on commodities pro- duced in factories owned by individuals. It premised its concepts and conceptual framework on the private ownership in the means of production.
The limitations of Marx’s critique form neat slots in a logical flow which theoretically underpin the formation of state corporations.
If abolition of private property is the abolition of capital (as per Marx’s characterisation of capital) then nationalisation can be equated with socialism. The legitimising roots of this lie quite deep. “... in this branch (alkali production, the United Alkali Trust) which forms the basis of the whole chemical industry, competition has been replaced by monopoly in England, and the road had been paved, most gratifyingly, for future expropriation by the whole of society, the nation” F. Engels, 1894 (Capital, vol. III, Part V, Chapter 27- ‘The Role of Credit in Capitalist Enterprise’).
If capitalism can be studied country by country as Marx does in deriving national rates of profit (“What we want to show ... is precisely the way in which a general rate of profit takes shape in any given country.“ K. Marx, Capital, vol. III, Part II ‘Conversion Of Profit into Average Profit’ Ch 8) then “national solution” will constitute the centre stage dispersing the global edge of wage- workers resistances & struggles.
Marx wrongly shows extended reproduction in a closed capitalist system. This erroneous under- standing of the accumulation of capital removes from the theoretical purview the prime basis of the crises of capital. The global systemic crises of capital are then per force shown to be only crises of disproportionate production in different branches of production. Then planning becomes a solution to the crises of capital. World Bank, IMF and WTO like institutions are trying to do this on a global scale, whereas caricatures a la Bukharin (“State capitalism is crisisless”) do it on a national scale.
Lenin’s theory of “imperialism” hides the struggles of wage-workers against capital, and instead supports and engenders the politics based on oppressor and oppressed countries i.e. politics based on state identities. This forms the ideological support for the vociferous “anti-imperialist” struggles for the formation of alternative state structures.
Together with this the politics of representation & delegation and “professional revolutionaries” provides the practical means of state- capitalist take-overs. It is not by chance that ‘Capital’, ‘Communist Manifesto’ etc. have been published and distributed in millions by state apparatuses in Russia, China, etc.
The publication details of Capital used for this text : Karl Marx, Capital, edited by F.Engels, Progress Publishers, Moscow. Vol I first published 1954, reprint 1984, Vol II first published 1956, reprint 1984, Vol III first published 1959, reprint 1984 .
As per Marx the following six are the most general counterbalancing forces among all possible counteracting influences to the general law of the falling rate of profit (Capital, Vol. III, Part 3, Chapter 14, ‘Counteracting Influences’):
1. Increasing intensity of exploitation . (Increases surplus value, other things being same.)
2. Depression of wages below the value of labour power. ( Increases the extracted surplus value.)
3. Cheapening of elements of constant capital . (Decreasing ‘C’ increases the rate of profit.)
4. Relative over- population. (Decrease in wage due to the cheapness and abundance of disposable or unemployed wage-labourers, and thus increases surplus value extracted)
5. Foreign trade. ( Cheapens the elements of constant capital ‘C’, or partly the necessities of life for which the variable capital is exchanged. It increases the rate of profit by increasing the rate of surplus value and lowering the value of constant capital.) and
6. The increase of stock-capital. K Marx, ‘A contribution to a critique of political economy’, Introduction. As attempted by Henry Grossman.
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