Lecture
Это окончание невероятной информации про развитие капитализма.
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number of cases (especially where open ideological adherence to socialism was demonstrated), anti-colonial movements could rely on direct or indirect economic, political, and military support from the "world socialist system." Finally, the existence of the colonial system generated significant conflicts of interest within the camp of the developed capitalist states. The USA, Germany, and Japan, which did not possess colonial empires (Germany was stripped of its colonies after the First World War, and Japan after the Second, while the USA's colonial possessions were small), were interested in unimpeded access of their national capital to the colonial territories of other powers. This prompted them to support the idea of national independence for the colonies on the international stage. The combination of these factors led to the historically rapid collapse of the colonial system.
In some cases, the granting of independence to colonies occurred even without a significant intensification of anti-colonial struggle. However, the achievement of independence was frequently preceded by prolonged and bloody armed struggle (Algeria, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique, Northern Rhodesia — now Zimbabwe...). The acquisition of political independence in most cases did not mean the automatic achievement of economic independence of the former colony from the metropole. The policy of colonial exploitation was replaced by a policy of neocolonialism. Neocolonialism was based on former metropoles and other developed capitalist states using their economic and political advantages to impose unequal trade, economic, and political relations on former colonies.
The policy of neocolonialism was pursued, firstly, through direct political and military support for puppet regimes (the USA acquired rich experience of this kind as early as the 19th century, pursuing so-called "gunboat diplomacy" in Latin America — direct and indirect military pressure on ruling elites, up to and including the organization of military coups, in order to install regimes favorable to itself). Secondly, this was facilitated by the economic backwardness of the countries that had freed themselves from colonial dependence, and by the disproportions in economic development that had formed during the colonial period. The most modern branches of the economy in former colonies belonged to monopolistic groups from the former metropoles, and depended on them technologically and in terms of personnel. The economies of post-colonial countries had a pronounced raw-material character, frequently acquiring the features of a monoculture — deep specialization in the export of a single agricultural or extractive product (up to 80-90% of exports). In many liberated countries, local backward agriculture suffered significant damage from international competition, as a result of which these countries became dependent on food aid from more developed states. The post-colonial economic development of liberated countries encountered significant difficulties. There occurred a gradual drawing of the liberated states into the world capitalist market, no longer constrained by the barriers that direct colonial domination had created. However, the former colonial countries entered into competition on the world market from a manifestly weaker position (which found its expression precisely in neocolonialism). A clear division of the world capitalist economy into a developed "core" and an underdeveloped "periphery" took place.
Designating countries freed from colonial dependence as "developing" is merely a bashful cover for the fact of their underdevelopment compared with countries that went through the industrial revolution in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During a comparatively brief historical period (the 1950s-1980s), the "developing countries" were able to exploit the contradictions between the two world systems, balancing between them in order to secure certain advantages for themselves. It was precisely during this period that the division of the world economy into the "first" (developed capitalist states), "second" (socialist states), and "third" (developing countries) worlds took shape. However, the objective economic conditions of the international market (chiefly the predominant economic power of the developed capitalist states) determined that almost all "third world" countries were drawn into the orbit precisely of the world capitalist economy. In the countries of the "third world," after liberation from colonial dependence and being drawn into the world market, the development of the capitalist mode of production accelerated.
However, the capitalist system forming on the underdeveloped periphery differed from the economic model that had taken shape in the developed countries at the core of the world capitalist economy — and not only in its level of development. In the countries of the "third world" a model of dependent peripheral capitalism took shape.1 Dependent peripheral capitalism is a socio-economic model of capitalism that formed in relatively underdeveloped countries (having mainly a raw-material specialization and an insignificant sector of modern industry controlled by foreign capital). The capitalist mode of production in these countries develops mainly not for internal reasons, but under the influence of the capital of more developed countries. For these reasons, a dependency of the "peripheral" countries on the economically more powerful countries of the "core" of the capitalist world economy takes shape.
1 The founder of the concept of peripheral capitalism is the Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch.
The features of the peripheral capitalism model are determined by the fundamental fact that, for the countries of the "third world," the development of capitalism grows not only out of the internal laws and contradictions of the economic order of these countries, but is also determined by the capitalist relations dominant in the world economy. Thus, for these countries, capitalist development is in many respects (and for the most backward — in every respect) imposed by external conditions. As a result, the following features proved characteristic of peripheral capitalism:
• The orientation of the capitalist mode of production primarily toward the external market, and its relatively weaker connection with the internal, national market, which is usually complemented by the control of international monopolistic corporations over the most modern sectors of the economy oriented toward the external market.
• The absence of a sufficient organic connection between the growth of the capitalist mode of production and the economic development of pre-capitalist modes of production and their vestiges, and, as a consequence, the destructive impact of the development of capitalism on economic activity conducted within the framework of pre-capitalist modes of production.
• The presence of significant vestiges of pre-capitalist modes of production, previously adapted by the colonizers for the direct exploitation of the colonies, and which as a result took on an ugly, deformed appearance (especially in the sphere of socio-political relations — for example, the artificial inflation of tribalism1)
. • A "mimicking" model of behavior, relative to the developed countries, on the part of the capitalist elite of the "third world" countries, expressed above all in an orientation toward the level of consumption characteristic of the most wasteful1
Tribalism is a system of setting various clan and tribal groups against one another, based on rivalry among clan and tribal elites. strata of the capitalist elite of the developed countries.
• In pursuit of their own hypertrophied consumption, the capitalists of "third world" countries reduce the domestic rate of capital accumulation (which leads to a fall in the rate of economic growth), and exert strong downward pressure on the price of labor power (which leads to the perpetuation of poverty and economic backwardness).
• The low competitiveness of most of the economy of the "third world" countries leads, firstly, to a significant scale of "shadow economy" activity aimed at avoiding the costs of doing business under formal rules (chiefly taxes); and, secondly, to a high level of corruption in obtaining economic advantages with the assistance of government officials. The vulnerable position of "third world" countries in the system of international capitalist competition has given rise to numerous concepts of the super-exploitation of the "third world" by more developed countries (which is often interpreted as the exploitation of the global "South" by the global "North"). It is quite obvious that direct exploitation in relations between developed and less developed countries is rather the exception. However, the very fact of the difference in levels of economic development, and consequently the difference in production costs, creates conditions under which developed countries gain an advantage in exchange on the world market. In addition, the objectively stronger position of the developed countries allows them to abuse their position on the world market, imposing "rules of the game" favorable to themselves. One of the components of the concept of the super-exploitation of the "third world" is the thesis of the complicity of the working class of the "North" in the exploitation of the countries of the "South." In such a general form this thesis is hardly justified, but one cannot deny the interest of certain strata of the working class in the benefits brought by the policy of neocolonialism (as, earlier, by colonial policy).
CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION — the concentration of production at enterprises that are increasing their share of the total output of a given type of product, which is usually accompanied by growth in the size of enterprises.
SPECIALIZATION OF PRODUCTION — the concentration of the production of a particular type of product at enterprises that produce only that product. This usually also leads to the concentration of production.
CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL — an increase in the size of capital through its accumulation, as well as through the centralization of capitals. It represents the economic precondition for the concentration of production.
CENTRALIZATION OF CAPITAL — the combination of several independent individual capitals under the control of a single owner. It contributes to the process of capital concentration, but is not directly connected with the concentration of production (a change of owner in itself does not affect the scale and specialization of production).
MONOPOLISTIC CAPITAL — capital possessing the properties of a capitalist monopoly.
CAPITALIST MONOPOLY — the ability of large capital to influence the process of price formation for some good, owing to its high relative share in the production and/or marketing of that good. This ability allows monopolistic capital to extract monopoly super-profit.
MONOPOLY SUPER-PROFIT — profit that arises because monopolistic capital sets the market price of a good above the equilibrium price of supply and demand, or through the monopolistic retention in its own hands of the conditions for especially low production costs.
OLIGOPOLY — the dominant position of several large capitals in the production and/or marketing of some good.
TRANSFER PRICES — prices used for settlements between constituent parts of large monopolistic organizations.
STATE-MONOPOLY CAPITALISM — a historical stage in the development of capitalism, beginning with which the mutual dependence of capitalist monopolies and the state intensifies: monopolistic capital strengthens its influence over the state apparatus, while the capitalist state increases the depth and degree of its intervention in economic processes in the interests of the reproduction of social capital as a whole, and of the largest monopolistic capital in particular.
FINANCE CAPITAL — monopolistic capital formed through the merging of industrial and banking monopolistic capital, and occupying a leading position on the financial market.
NATURAL MONOPOLY — a capitalist monopoly that has formed in a branch of industry where a monopolistic organization of production is manifestly more efficient than a competitive one.
MARKET FAILURES — situations in which market relations fail to provide adequate information about costs and beneficial effects through market prices. One particular case of market failure is the production of goods characterized by the presence of external effects (externalities) — for example, the production of public goods.
. PUBLIC GOOD — a good to which the exclusion principle is inapplicable, i.e., access to which cannot be restricted by the seller, including for those consumers who did not pay for the good. This is why public goods are characterized by the presence of external effects (externalities).
EXTERNAL EFFECTS (EXTERNALITIES) — side effects arising in the production and consumption of a good that affect third parties outside the seller-buyer transaction, and/or that are not accounted for in the price of the good.
DEPENDENT PERIPHERAL CAPITALISM — a socio-economic model of capitalism that formed in relatively underdeveloped countries (having mainly a raw-material specialization and an insignificant sector of modern industry controlled by foreign capital). The capitalist mode of production in these countries develops mainly not for internal reasons, but under the influence of the capital of more developed countries. For these reasons, a dependency of the "peripheral" countries on the economically more powerful countries of the "core" of the capitalist world economy takes shape.
Часть 1 Chapter 12: The Development of Capitalism on Its Own Basis
Часть 2 Thesaurus for Chapter 12 - Chapter 12: The Development of
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