Lecture
The authors would like to begin the analysis of the first stage of late capitalism by recalling those features of imperialism that were identified in the works of V. I. Lenin ("Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," "Notebooks on Imperialism," and others). Let us emphasize: the authors do this not because they consider Ulyanov to be the leading theorist on this problem, but because he (and here we are ready to endorse the old conclusions of Soviet political economy of capitalism) was perhaps the most successful in continuing the method of "Capital" as applied to the study of a relatively new economic reality. It was he who, critically synthesizing the work of Hilferding, Hobson, Kautsky, and Luxemburg, managed to show precisely what constitutes the partial (not yet system-destroying) negation of the systemic quality of the capitalist mode of production (namely, the "undermining" of commodity production1). 1 "...The development of capitalism has reached the point where, although commodity production still 'reigns' and is considered the basis of the entire economy, in fact it has already been undermined, and the main profits go to the 'geniuses' of financial machinations. At the basis of these machinations and frauds lies the socialization of production,
It was Lenin who, on this basis, managed to draw a number of conclusions about the change in the nature
of capital itself (the shift of advantage from the commodity market to the capital market,
chiefly in the form of finance capital dominating over industrial capital, etc.) and the resulting geoeconomic and geopolitical, as well as socio-political, consequences (the authors deliberately use modern vocabulary, "reloading" Lenin's characterizations in terms of contemporary language). One can
argue about Ulyanov's last conclusions
(although the series of socialist revolutions and the breakdown of the imperial-colonial
system were quite reasonably predicted by him;
it is another matter that he underestimated the potential for self-reform of
late capitalism and the possible degree
of mutation of future socialism). But the theoretical and empirical validity of the first
two conclusions (the dominance of monopolies, which undermine but do not destroy free
competition, and the dominance of finance capital) is beyond doubt.
So, looking deeper into the phenomena characteristic of the first stage of late capitalism, we can establish that
here (and in this case the authors of
economics textbooks and Soviet courses on the political
economy of imperialism will, strangely
enough, be united) there occurs, at the very
least, a significant modification of the mechanisms of free competition, and
"imperfect" (the language of economics) or monopolistic (the language of Marxism) competition emerges. At the basis of this lies a modification of the fundamental laws,
the foundations of the market — the independence of its agents,
who are unable to influence market parameters
(price, for example) — which is undermined (naturally,
only partially) by the deliberate influence
exerted on them by the largest capitals and
their associations (initially cartels and trusts), which received in Marxism the name "monopolies" (the authors will further use
this categorical designation).
but the gigantic progress of humanity, which has worked its way up to this socialization, benefits... speculators" (Lenin, V. I., Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism [Lenin, V. I., Complete Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 322]).
If, at the same time, one leaves the realm of pure abstractions (which is typical of standard works lying within the neoclassical paradigm), where monopoly (oligopoly)
is understood as a situation in which a company (a number of companies) fully controls (control) the market, and instead looks at the real diversity of monopolistic
structures (from industry conferences and semi-legal cartels to diversified financial-industrial-information groups and holdings), then one can conclude that such agents are capable of partially and consciously modifying market parameters; moreover, they are capable of undermining the separateness of producers and consumers, making them partially dependent on
these associations. It is quite natural that the capitalist system tries to limit this influence of monopolies on other market counterparties, for which
it objectively has to resort, again, to extra-market, conscious (namely, antimonopoly) mechanisms of influence on the market on the part of the state,
as an institution that not only represents the interests of the largest monopolistic capitals but also performs the function of maintaining the stability of the system as a whole.
Thus, starting from the 20th century, the content and mechanisms of functioning of the free-competition market (i.e., the market described in the first chapter of both "Capital"
and the opening chapters of any economics textbook) are modified (we would say, following Lenin, more sharply — undermined)
as a result of the development of conscious regulation. This regulation comes both from monopolies, which leads to the "imperfection" of competition, and from the subjects of antimonopoly regulation, which
allows this "imperfection" to be kept within limits where such competition nevertheless remains competition. This symbiosis of monopolistic pressure and antimonopoly regulation (here they are, the real transitional relations) leads to the result that capitalist relations (including
the market) are strengthened through... the modification, the development "in itself" and "for itself" of post-market principles.
Transitional relations of production are relations in which elements of the relations of production of different modes of production are combined. Transitional relations in late capitalism are relations in which elements of capitalist and post-capitalist relations of production are combined.____
Thus, the first stage in the evolution of late capitalism is marked by the emergence of a qualitatively new component of the market (capitalist) economy — industrial-financial monopolistic corporations, capable of consciously and partially influencing the market, giving rise to imperfect competition, antimonopoly regulation, and many other transitional relations that undermine the market's original properties while nevertheless, on the whole, remaining within the framework of the capitalist
system and strengthening it. Let us also note
that at this stage the state also undergoes a transformation into a kind of "super" (or "hyper") corporation, one that not only sets the rules of the game on the market but also turns into one of the most active players — into a gigantic capital held in universal private ownership.
Comparing this conclusion, made and substantiated before us, with the basic premises of the method for investigating the dialectic of the "decline" of economic systems allows us to consider
the following thesis sufficiently substantiated:
the first stage in the evolution of late capitalism (monopolistic capitalism, or imperialism) is characterized by the undermining of the original relation of production (quality) of the commodity-capitalist economic system — namely, the commodity relation based on the separateness of producers under conditions of the social division of labor (in particular, the undermining of free competition).
The undermining of commodity production under capitalism is the combination of commodity-production relations with conscious, non-market regulation of production, which becomes inevitable
at a high level of socialization.
In this connection, let us allow ourselves an important methodological remark: what has been said allows us to suppose (though not yet to prove) that, in general, the main stages of the "decline" of capitalism will continue to correspond to
steps toward the modification (undermining) of its foundations — the system-forming relations of production, such as money as the universal means for developing this system, the relation between capital and wage labor, and so on.
Monopolistic capital itself, therefore, can be defined precisely in this way — as capital of such a concentration that it is able consciously, purposefully, and systematically to influence (within certain limits, of course) commodity relations, in particular the market and such of its parameters as prices and the quality of goods, the volumes and order of sales and purchases, and so on.
Monopolistic capital:
the definition of the concept of "monopolistic capital" was introduced by us earlier in the main part
of the book — see Chapter 12, Section 12.1
The basis of this power of monopolistic capital is the development of late-industrial material production. In Western social sciences, it is customary, in characterizing this stage, to place emphasis
on Fordism and Taylorism, i.e., specific technologies at the micro level1. These parameters
are, of course, of fundamental importance. Moreover, they should be supplemented by the characteristics of other fundamental
changes in the quality of the means of production and of the labor force. For the former, what becomes
characteristic is a revolutionary transition from the age of steam, railroads, and factories to the age
of electricity, the automobile, assembly-line
production, and combines.
For the latter — the reduction of the typical worker to an appendage of the assembly line, accompanied by a simultaneous radical increase in the role and scale of participation in social production of the technical intelligentsia (engineers and production managers). In our view, no less fruitful is an emphasis on changes in macro-technology, leading to such changes in the relations of production as are captured by the concept of socialization1. In Marxism, this concept is filled with a rich meaning, far from reducible to the concentration, specialization, and cooperation of production.
1 See: Taylor, F. W., The Principles of Scientific Management.
Moscow, 192S [sic]; idem, The Principles of Scientific Management.
Moscow, 1991; Ford, H., My Life and Work. Moscow:
Finansy i statistika, 1989; idem, Today and Tomorrow.
Moscow, 1992; Gantt, H. L., The Organization of Labor. Reflections of an American Engineer on the Economic Consequences of the World War. Moscow, 1923.
In our view, no less fruitful is an emphasis on changes in macro-technology, leading to such changes in the relations of production as are captured by the concept of socialization1. In Marxism, this concept is filled with a rich meaning, far from reducible to the concentration, specialization, and cooperation of production. The socialization of production under capitalism is a process expressed in the growing mutual dependence of the links of the social division of labor. This process rests both on the concentration and specialization of production and capital, leading to growth in the social scale of production, and on technological shifts that increase the importance of close cooperation in production between enterprises.
The unfolding of the processes of socialization leads to the formation of a national economic-technological macro-system in which the key role is played by late-industrial material production, whose basic parameters are determined by a highly socialized core — a limited circle of the largest enterprises linked by stable relations of production-economic cooperation. This state of affairs, of course, was not characteristic of the entire macroeconomic system of the developed countries in the first half of the 20th century, but such was, at that time, the core of the economy that determined the main distinguishing features of that stage. It was here that the largest capitals were concentrated, and it was for this core that the undermining of the separateness of producers was characteristic — that is, the undermining of the very foundation of the commodity relation and of the entire capitalist system. Moreover, from the Marxist historical-philosophical and political-economic point of view, monopolistic capital is precisely the way in which the capitalist order adapts to the progress of late-industrial technologies, to socialization. It is capital's response to the challenge of such progress, a response that follows the only possible path — the undermining of the commodity relation (free competition) as its original quality. This step of capital's adaptation to socialization turns out to be deeply contradictory, giving rise to imperialism as the geoeconomic and geopolitical existence of monopolistic capital and to the global cataclysms characteristic of it — from colonialism to world war. Imperialism is the totality of features of monopoly capitalism characteristic of its initial stage: the emergence of capitalist monopolies, the merging of capitalist monopolies with the state, the predominance of the export of capital over the export of goods, the territorial division of the world into colonial empires among the capitalist powers, and the economic division of the world, leading to military conflicts in the struggle for the redivision of the world.
To understand the contradictions of the latter, we must rise, in our investigation, to a higher level and look at the process of evolution of the economic social formation as a whole. It is, in fact, precisely in this period that humanity for the first time encounters the limitations of the mechanisms of the "realm of necessity": the international socialization of production requires conscious regulation, otherwise (if the monopoly-capitalist form is preserved) there arises a global threat to society (capable of giving rise to, and indeed giving rise to, world wars) coming from... its own ruling force — state-monopoly capital.
Let us draw an intermediate conclusion: the contradictions of the socioeconomic
formation (in particular, the growth of socialization) at the beginning of the 20th century lead to the point where
society turns out to be capable, and in a certain sense compelled (pushed to this by the contradictions of imperialism), of destroying
itself on a global scale. World
war becomes the most important mechanism
of such self-destruction.
It is no coincidence that it is precisely at this moment
that the first sustained attempt
to create a new society arises — the socialist revolutions, which triumphed first in
Russia and later gave rise to a social
system qualitatively different from capitalism, one that called itself socialist. But that is the subject of other works.
So, the First World War, the socialist revolutions that began in 1917,
and the Great Depression showed that monopolistic capital by itself could
lead to the collapse of the capitalist system, demonstrating the evident limitations of the first step of capital's adaptation
to the new conditions.
TRANSITIONAL RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION — relations in which elements of the relations of production of different modes of production are combined. Transitional relations in late capitalism are relations in which elements of capitalist and post-capitalist relations of production are combined.
THE UNDERMINING OF COMMODITY PRODUCTION under capitalism is the combination of commodity-production relations with conscious, non-market regulation of production, which becomes inevitable at a high
level of socialization.
THE SOCIALIZATION OF PRODUCTION under capitalism is a process expressed in the growing mutual dependence of the links of the social division of labor. This process rests both on the concentration and specialization of production and capital, leading to growth in the social scale of production, and on technological shifts that increase the importance of close cooperation in production between enterprises.
IMPERIALISM is the totality of features of monopoly capitalism characteristic of its initial stage: the emergence of capitalist monopolies, the merging of capitalist monopolies with the state, the predominance of the export of capital over the export of goods, the territorial division of the world into colonial empires among the capitalist powers, and the economic division of the world, leading to military conflicts in the struggle for the redivision of the world.
S.Q.1. When, and on what basis, does the undermining of commodity production develop?
S.Q.2. What is the connection between socialization and changes in the productive forces: in the qualities of the worker and in the technology of social production?
S.Q.3. What contradictions does the development of monopoly capitalism lead to at its first stage?
S.Q.4. Which features of imperialism lead to an intensification of the power struggle among the largest capitalist powers?
Comments