Imperialism and Capitalist Development in Marx’s Capital

Abstract

This article aims at contributing to current debates on tbe 'new imperialism' by presenting the main results of a reading of Marx's Capital in light of his vmtings on colonialism, which were unknown in the early Marxist debate on imperialism. It aims to prove that, in his main work, Marx does not analyse a national economy or -correspondingly -an abstract model of capitalist society, but a world-polarising and ever-expanding system. This abstraction allows the identification of the laws of development of capitalism and its antagonisms, and reflects the tendency of the capital of the dominant states, by making permanent recourse also to methods of so-called 'primitive accumulation', to expand and increase the exploitation ofworkers worldviide, and, at the same time, the cooperation between them. What, for Marx, was later deñned as imperialism is the concrete form of the process of'globalisation' of the capital of the dominant states. With the development of his analysis, Marx became increasingly aware of the economic and political consequences of imperialism. In his activity within the First Intemational, with regard to the question of Irish independence, he affirmed the fundamental importance of building a real solidarity between class struggles in imperialist countries and anti-colonial resistance in colonised and dependent countries. His examination of imperialism and internationalist perspective were downplayed, denied, if not completely reversed in the interpretation and systématisation of his thought by reformist leaders within the Second International. In their attempt to react against this tendency and develop an analysis and a political strategy adequate to the new phase of generalised imperialist expansion, increased inter-imperialist rivalries and rising anti-colonial resistance, Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin reaffirmed the centrality of the critique of imperialism at the economic and at the political levels. Even if they were partially unaware of this, they thus developed and expanded on some aspects already present in Marx's work.Keywords capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, internationalism, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA^) * I am gratefijl to the participants of the IIPPE Second International Workshop in Procida, where I presented an initial version of this paper, and to Alex Anievas, Alex Callinicos, Adam Hanieh, Alfredo Saad-Filho, Abelardo Marina Flores and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on this paper. I especially thank John Smith for tbis valuable help with the various versions of this article, and for our discussions on the question of imperialism and the law ofvalue. 65 Koninklijkf Brill NV, lx;idi;n, 2(113 HOI: l(l.im:VI.SH»2()BX.|2;S4i;«)() ii8

A Marxist Theory of International Relations

“…I (Ch. 24), Lucia Pradella argued that Marx had already drawn a ‘relationship between his crisis theory and the phenomenon of modern imperialism’ ( 2013 , 124). See Donald Sassoon’s definition of Austro-Marxism in his voluminous work on twentieth century Western Marxism ( 2010 , 70).…”

Primitive accumulation and Chinese mirrors

“…Not only is Chapter 33 not an afterthought, it is entirely consistent with Marx’s discussion elsewhere. From the Communist Manifesto through to Capital III, Marx (1971: 110, 266) argues that the global expansion of the capitalist mode of production is not a contingent factor of capitalist production but rather its ‘basis and the vital element’ and one of its ‘cardinal facts’ (see Pradella, 2013). Even more impressive for understanding the chapter order of Capital I, in which the chapter treating the ‘expropriation of the expropriator’ precedes the final chapter concerning Wakefield’s theory of systematic colonization and the centrifugal tendency in late primitive accumulation in the New World, is the statement in Capital III that the ‘conception of capital’ is formed from the ‘severance of the conditions of production … from the producers’; the discussion goes on to say:It begins with primitive accumulation, appears as a permanent process in the accumulation and concentration of capital, and expresses itself finally as centralization of existing capitals in a few hands … This process would soon bring about the collapse of capitalist production if it were not for counteracting tendencies, which have a continuous decentralizing effect alongside the centripetal one.…”

Passages from Marxism to Postcolonialism: A Comment on Vivek Chibber’s Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital

“…As Henry Heller (2011: 93) has argued, it is necessary to recognize that ‘primitive accumulation outside Europe in the early modern period was as important to the development of capitalism as it was within Europe’ (see also Wolf, 1982: Part 2). Moreover, the coeval and mutually constitutive unfolding of primitive accumulation in core and periphery ultimately generated a globe-spanning division of labour that enabled substantial merchant groups to establish control over ‘a variety of enterprises from putting out networks and peasant agriculture to slave plantations and factories in the modern sense’ (Banaji, 2010: 273; see also Pradella, 2013). Moreover, the emergence of a capitalist world-system with Europe in general and Britain in particular at its core was the result of a series of reconfigurations of regional constellations of power in world economic circuits between the 12th and the 18th centuries: the Arab trade empire gave way to a Mediterranean ‘commercial capitalism’ under Genoese and then Portuguese dominance between the 12th and the 15th centuries, followed by the ‘Company-capitalism’ spearheaded by the Dutch and the British from the 16th to the 18th century.…”