Critics of the BRICS base their arguments on empirical observations. But they need to go further beyond this and provide a deeper analysis of their theory of sub-imperialism. Otherwise their critique is a distraction from real issues of concern to progressive forces
Pambazuka News 673 (April 2014) carried nine articles on 'sub-imperialist' BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Three of the articles are by Patrick Bond and four by his present or past students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre (UKNC) for Civil Society of which Bond is the Director. This essay focuses on the paper by Bond - 'BRICS and the tendency to sub-imperialism' - that is a little better grounded in theory than the others.
I argue that Bond and his colleagues are inventing a category that simply does not exist. It is a distraction from real issues of concern to progressive forces everywhere. I write in the hope that others might feel inclined to join in this debate.
BRICS-BASHING
I will focus on the 'theory' angle. There are several empirical observations made by Bond, but they make sense only if properly located in some theory. So I will ignore several obvious contradictions in his empirical observations. For example, he credits the BRICS for their 'coherent strategy within the G20 to halt Washington's threatened attack on Syria last September.' But this was quickly negated by the following: 'However, everywhere else, the BRICS failed on nearly every count.'
Bond's main thesis is that BRICS are simply posturing to be anti-imperialist, but are themselves imperialist - or to use his words, that they have a 'sub-imperialist or inter-imperialist positioning that belies anti-imperialist posturing'.
Three countries - China, Russia and South Africa- are particularly targeted for Bond's critique. He talks of China's 'investment invasion of Africa'; 'South African capital's drive to accumulate'; and Russia's 'blunt takeover of Crimea'. I know that these and several such phrases have resonance in some parts of the popular media in Africa as also in the West. But leaving aside journalistic forays, it is necessary that we undertake a serious analysis of the theory behind this outburst of BRICS-bashing ... and its political implications.
Bond subjects the five - he calls them the 'Fragile Five' - to an indiscriminate collective clobbering. He quotes numerous 'authorities' - among them, Rosa Luxemburg, David Harvey and Sam Moyo.
I have a fairly good knowledge of the writings of these, and I cannot but wonder if they would support Bond's rather generous amplifications of these to bolster the case about BRICS acting as 'sub-imperialists' on the African continent.
ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE TERM 'SUB-IMPERIALISM'
I don't really know the origin of the term 'sub-imperialism'. Patrick Bond traces it back to 1974. He says: 'In his pioneering writing about Latin American geopolitics dating to the 1960s, Marini (1974) argued that 1970s-era Brazil was "the best current manifestation of sub-imperialism," because of regional economic extraction, export of capital typically associated with imperialist politics, and internal corporate monopolization, including financialization.'
I carried out a quick literature survey, and I did not find many citations on the subject. In the Wikipedia, the most current citations refer mainly to Bond, and a recent (December 2013) paper by [url=file:///D:/1 Tandon/C WRITINGS/8 Blog - global intifada/2014/0422 %2310 On sub-imperialism/. http:/www.systemiccapital.com/subimperialism-the-u-s-and-brazil-in-morales-bolivia/]Michael Abbott[/url] - 'Sub imperialism the U.S. and Brazil in Morales' Bolivia' - where Abbott describes President Evo Morales, as an 'eager' agent of Brazilian sub-imperialism through collaborating in exploiting the Amazonian forest resources.
However, I discovered that the most erudite and theoretically sophisticated paper on the subject is by the Turkish scholar Elif Çagli. In a paper 'On Sub-imperialism Regional Power Turkey', (2009) she explores the term at great length using Marxist categories of analysis.
Çagli argues that under globalisation capitalism has moved to a new stage of imperialism, where the law of 'uneven and combined development' has created a three-tier hierarchy of states: between the imperialist countries at one end and the neo-colonies or 'semi-colonies' on the other are located the middle level 'sub-imperialist' countries.
The BRICS form the core of this in-between category.
But BRICS are not the only sub-imperialists. There are others - such as Turkey and Iran.
She has an interesting and in-depth analysis of the contradictions between the 'old' and the 'new' Turkish 'bourgeoisie' - the old under the army tutelage and the new based on Islamic circles.
But despite the populist rhetoric of the 'new' bourgeoisie, they are even more of a 'sub-imperialist' in the region than the 'old' bourgeoisie, and they have embraced the neo-liberal economic agenda with greater zeal than the 'old' bourgeoisie.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION
1. There is an obvious need for further elaboration of the theory of 'sub-imperialism'. In the UKNC discourse the analysis is entirely empiricist. It is important for Bond and his colleagues to undertake a deeper analysis - like Çagli - of what they might describe as 'the South African bourgeoisie'.
Who are they?
What is the source of their capital?
Who owns and controls this capital?
2. I have problems with Çagli's theory too. Her analysis, as also Bond's and Abbott's, makes out every country that follows the neoliberal economic paradigm, and seeks market or an avenue for capital export to a neighbouring country a sub-imperialist.
Thus, in their lexicon, Kenya becomes a sub-imperialist country in the East African region - it exports both goods and capital within the region. But then what about Uganda?
It exports Chinese-made 'sub-imperialist' goods to Rwanda and the DRC, as well as acting as conduit for Chinese capital in the region. Does that make Uganda also 'sub-imperialist'?
Or is it now a 'neo-colony' of China?
3. In Abbott's analysis President Evo Morales becomes an 'agent' of sub-imperialist Brazil because he allows Bolivian resources to be exploited by the Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras. Applying the same logic, then, practically every head of state in Africa - from Haig Geingob in Namibia to John Mahama in Ghana - who have opened their countries to South Africa-based capitalist corporations, become, de facto, agents of sub-imperialist Jacob Zuma. But then who is left in Africa who is not either a sub-imperialist or an agent of sub-imperialists?
4. It is obvious that in the conceptual framework of the sub-imperialist theorists there is simply no room for regionalism in Africa or regional struggles against the imperialist countries of the US and Europe. I find this most disempowering.
For the last almost 30 years some of us have been actively engaged in battling against Europe's attempt to impose a totally iniquitous 'Economic Partnership Agreements' (EPAs) on our countries - among them, for example, that our countries stop all domestic production and export subsidies. The latest deadline for signing the EPA is October 2014.
If we fail to sign it, Europe will impose sanctions on Africa. Civil society organisations - such as the Southern and Eastern African Trade and Information Institute (SEATINI) and the human rights organisations in the region - have been carrying out a sustained struggle against the EPAs and have so far succeeded in holding back their governments to signing the EPAs. Should they stop doing their campaigns?
5. The one concept missing from the sub-imperialist literature is that of the 'national question'. This is not the place for an elaboration of this.
All I can say is that it is not to be equated with national autarchy; it is about the people of a 'nation' to want to determine their own destiny.
This has been the struggle in Africa since the 1884-85 Berlin conference that arbitrarily divided up the continent among imperial countries.
In recent years, even some 'nations' in Europe - such as the Scottish and Catalonian peoples - are also seeking national self determination.
Is this an unjust struggle?
6. In terms of their analysis, there is just one legitimate struggle - that of the popular masses to rise up against the governments in their countries, in their regions, their local agents, and the entire imperialist global system.
Patrick Bond recommends that this should be done 'as quickly as possible'. This is what he says: 'The challenge for 'BRICS -from-below' critics is to link and internationalise as quickly as possible, because their interests and campaigning analyses, strategies, tactics and alliances have many points of overlap - with each other and with the world's progressive forces. Only then will a genuine global anti-imperialist project become possible, i.e., when anti-sub-imperialists of the world also unite'.
With this sweeping global strategy, Patrick would have us rise up against - among others - anti-US Evo Morales in Bolivia; popularly elected Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela; Zuma in South Africa; Mugabe in Zimbabwe; Museveni in Uganda; the sub-imperialist Chinese states of China and India; and of course, Vladimir Putin for his 'blunt takeover of Crimea'.
But would that not make us all de facto allies of the US and Europe in the ensuing post-Ukraine evolving scenario?
7. This raises larger geo-political issues, and the place of BRICS in the evolving scenario. For forty years in the 1950s to 1980s NATO was supplying arms to apartheid South Africa and to Portugal to deny self-determination to its African colonies.
During those decades it was the USSR and China that had come to their aid. Of course, things have changed. China and Russia are not the same. But NATO remains more or less the same.
NATO unleashed the nearly 15-years war against Afghanistan leaving a trail of destruction and mayhem - like in Iraq. Age-old religious dissensions and economic frustrations in Libya, Syria, Mali, the Central African Republic - among other countries - have been exploited by the west for its geo-political and economic interests.
This is not to mention Iran which has been under US sanctions now for over three decades since the collapse of the US-backed Shah regime in 1979; and Palestine which has been ghettoed for 60 years ever since the founding of the state of Israel.
Further afield, the US has increased its military presence in the Pacific and has warned China against interfering with the 'freedom of navigation' in the South China Sea.
In South America, the US has been financing - like in Syria and the Ukraine - dissident elements in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. So the question: how does Africa position itself in this fast evolving geo-political situation?
These are difficult and complex issues.
The sub-imperialist theorists are caught up in the exuberance of their conceptual creation.
They need to provide a better theoretical foundation of their concept.
In my view, they have invented a category that simply does not exist.
It is a distraction from real issues of concern to progressive forces everywhere.
Yash Tandon is from Uganda and has worked at many different levels as an academic, a teacher, a political thinker, a rural development worker, a civil society activist, and an institution builder.Below is a speech by Yash Tandon on the Financial Crisis
in 2008.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
BRICS and the tendency to sub-imperialism by Patrick Bond
* Patrick Bond is a political economist, author, editor and lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
The recent period has reignited a fruitful debate about the concept of sub-imperialism and about transitions from sub- to inter-imperialism, and perhaps also one day to anti-imperialism. However, the most critical factor in making this debate real, not just a struggle over semantics between impotent leftist intellectuals, is a different process entirely, one not contingent upon rhetoric from above, but upon reality from below. Reality from below is increasingly tense in each of the main sub-imperialist powers currently seeking unity, the BRICS.
The rise of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc represents a potentially important geopolitical and economic force that, in early 2014, suffers a worsening schizophrenia, in terms of positioning within global political economy. The bloc’s more radical proponents argue it has ‘anti-imperialist’ potential. But there are far greater dangers of BRICS playing a ‘sub-imperialist’ role in contributing to neoliberal regime maintenance (especially in Africa), or even an inter-imperialist role as Russia appears tempted in the Ukraine/Crimea theatre. But there is potential, as well, for popular forces to unite in a role more akin to solidaristic cross-border anti-imperialism, given the extreme contradictions and intensity of social unrest in each site.
The label of ‘sub-imperialist’ states that accompany and extend imperialism was originally invoked by Ruy Mauro Marini (1965) to describe the Brazilian dictatorship’s role in the Western Hemisphere, and was then repeatedly applied during the 1970s when the Nixon Doctrine allowed Washington to outsource geopolitical policing responsibilities and accumulation opportunities to favoured regional allies, mostly pro-corporate authoritarian regimes.
Although some believe BRICS will have sufficient autonomy to become actively anti-imperialist (Desai 2013, Escobar 2013, Keet 2013, Martin 2013, Shubin 2013, Third World Network 2013), at the level of global governance this bloc has tended to reinforce not challenge prevailing power relations, except in exceptional cases such as in 2013 when Syria was threatened with bombing by Washington and in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea after losing crucial influence in Ukraine.
Like other more isolated states in prior epochs of service to imperialism, the BRICS accumulation trajectory, global geopolitical-economic-environmental strategy, hegemony over hinterlands and internal dynamics of class formation together suggest a pattern deserving the phrase sub-imperialist (Bond and Garcia 2014).
IMPERIALISM, CAPITALIST CRISIS, SUPER-EXPLOITATION AND REGIONAL HEGEMONY
There are at least four core relations of sub-imperialism: to imperialism, to capitalist crisis tendencies, to super-exploitative processes and to regional hegemony.
First, to define sub-imperialism properly implies a coherent definition of the systemic processes of imperialism within which it operates. There are a variety of ways to understand imperialism, but the most durable – especially for Africa – appears to be the conception which Rosa Luxemburg (1968) set out in The Accumulation of Capital in 1913, stressing the extra-economic coercion associated with exploitation between capitalist and non-capitalist spheres under conditions of capitalist crisis (in contrast to other accounts of the era which hinge more upon capital export, formal colonial relations and inter-imperial rivalries).
Second, as a result, capitalist crisis conditions become evident within the sub-imperial economies just as they are in the imperialist, even when accumulation is moving ahead at an apparently rapid clip. Overaccumulation of capital is a constant problem everywhere, often rising to crisis stage. As a result, in several sub-imperialist countries there are powerful impulses for local capital to both externalize and financialize.
Judging by David Harvey’s (2003) criteria in which sub-imperialists seek ‘spatio-temporal fixes’ to these problems, the BRICS offer some of the most extreme sites in the world today. These crisis conditions are particularly important because in the contemporary period, they have shifted what had earlier been nationalist (or even ‘state-capitalist’) power relations imposed by patronage-oriented states, towards the neoliberal public policies practiced elsewhere. They also entail intensified uneven development combined with super-exploitative (and often extra-economically coercive) systems of accumulation, as well as economic symptoms of imperialist desperation, especially financialization.
Third, sub-imperial regimes expand these same neoliberal practices for use within their regional spheres of influence, thus legitimating the Washington Consensus in ideological and concrete terms, especially by facilitating multilateral trade, investment and financing arrangements. Indeed, sub-imperial powers often promote neoliberal institutions even when complaining (sometimes bitterly) about their indifference to poorer countries, and they sometimes establish new ones that have similar functions in regional terms.
This in turn often permits the sub-imperial power to act as a regional platform for accumulation, drawing resources from the hinterland and marketing exports that typically destroy hinterland productive capacity and economic sovereignty. Usually the benefits are manifold, including trade surpluses with the hinterland (where the latter often supplies crucial raw materials on advantageous terms), the opportunity for profits to be accumulated within the sub-imperial power’s financial centres, and the expansion of influence via a strengthened economy especially where trade is conducted in the sub-imperial power’s currency.
All of this logically entails a regional gendarme role, a division of policing labour that allows the world capitalist system to continue with expansion of contracts, their enforcement and the extraction of adequate flows of materials (as well as workers) from distant sites that remain critical to the smooth functioning of the world division of labour.
Fourth, as Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros (2011, 19) put it, imperialism’s relations with sub-imperial allies always entailed ‘the super-exploitation of domestic labour. It was natural, therefore, that, as it grew, it would require external markets for the resolution of its profit realisation crisis.’ Concretely, to take BRICS as an example, super-exploitative relations are witnessed in the way that Chinese households are torn from rural land during the ongoing urbanization process, and in the broader context in which rural people require special work permits to live in cities, where they are paid much lower wages.
Such super-exploitative relations are then readily transferred to the international scale, where China’s role has been even more predatory than Western corporations, backed by its support to local dictators (e.g. the case of Zimbabwe where Chinese military and Zimbabwean generals conjoined as the Anjin Corporation in the world’s largest diamond fields, with a resulting Resource Curse as extreme as any in contemporary Africa) (Maguwu 2013).
Likewise, South Africa’s historical mode of apartheid super-exploitation – termed ‘articulations of modes of production’ by Harold Wolpe (1980) – exemplified the most extreme internal dimension of sub-imperial accumulation. Migrant male workers from rural Bantustans as well as regional hinterlands as far north as Malawi long provided ‘cheap labour’, thanks to black rural women’s unpaid reproduction of children, sick workers and retirees generally without state support.
This was not merely a matter of formal racial power. The expansion of the South African migrancy model much deeper into the Southern African region in the wake of apartheid’s early 1990s demise occurred notwithstanding tragic xenophobic reactions from the local working class. The August 2012 Marikana massacre of striking migrant platinum mineworkers at Lonmin was another example of how far the regimes’ policing function would go internally so as to defend the profitability of multinational extractive corporations (Saul and Bond 2014). But it is the inexorable regional-hinterland expansion of these processes that compels sub-imperial states to follow the logic of imperialism.
This is recognized by professional geopoliticians of capital, such as the Texas intelligence firm Stratfor (2009), in an internal memo (as revealed by WikiLeaks): ‘South Africa’s history is driven by the interplay of competition and cohabitation between domestic and foreign interests exploiting the country’s mineral resources. Despite being led by a democratically-elected government, the core imperatives of South Africa remain the maintenance of a liberal regime that permits the free flow of labor and capital to and from the southern Africa region, as well as the maintenance of a superior security capability able to project into south-central Africa.’
The ability to move up-continent was questioned in March 2013, however, in the Central African Republic capital of Bangui after authoritarian ruler Francois Bozize was ousted by guerrillas. More than a dozen South African soldiers were killed, according to interviews of surviving troops in Johannesburg’s main Sunday newspaper, while ‘protecting belongings of… businesses in Jo’burg... We were lied to straight out... We were told we were here to serve and protect, to ensure peace’ (Hosken and Mahlangu 2013). The protected Johannesburg capitalists included firms linked to the ruling party (Amabhungane 2013).
DYNAMICS OF IMPERIALISM AND SUB-IMPERIALISM
These latter relationships, in which capitalism both exploits and corrodes non-capitalist relations through extra-economic coercive techniques, were theorised originally by Luxemburg and have been revitalised as an explanatory system by Harvey under the rubric of ‘accumulation by dispossession.’ In other words, there are theoretically derived processes which explain the logic of imperialism and sub-imperialism together, even if contingencies may change the geographical place, shape and scale at which these processes unfold.
Luxemburg’s (1968, 396) Accumulation of Capital focuses on how capitalism’s extra-economic coercive capacities loot mutual aid systems and commons facilities, families (especially women’s role in social reproduction), the land, all forms of nature, and the shrinking state: ‘The relations between capitalism and the non-capitalist modes of production start making their appearance on the international stage. Its predominant methods are colonial policy, an international loan system – a policy of spheres of interest – and war. Force, fraud, oppression, looting are openly displayed without any attempt at concealment, and it requires an effort to discover within this tangle of political violence and contests of power the stern laws of the economic process.’
Thanks to a very careful examination of colonial-extractivist conditions in the then South Africa, Namibia and the DRC (Bond, Chitonge and Hopfmann 2007), her core insight (1968, 397), as distinct from framings by Lenin, Bukharin, Hilferding, Hobson and others of her era, was to show that ‘Capital cannot accumulate without the aid of non-capitalist’ relations. ‘Only the continuous and progressive disintegration of non-capitalist organization makes accumulation of capital possible.’
This process, Luxemburg argued, in which ‘capital feeds on the ruins’ of the non-capitalist relation, amounts to ‘eating it up. Historically, the accumulation of capital is a kind of metabolism between capitalist economy and those pre-capitalist methods of production without which it cannot go on and which, in this light, it corrodes and assimilates.’
This process is amplified during periods of desperation intrinsic to capitalist crisis, Luxemburg (1968, 76) observed, drawing on Marx’s classical theory about ‘perpetual overproduction,’ characterized by ‘the ceaseless flow of capital from one branch of production to another, and finally in the periodical and cyclical swings of reproduction between overproduction and crisis.’
At that point, Luxemburg (1968, 327) insists, the core countries reveal ‘the deep and fundamental antagonism between the capacity to consume and the capacity to produce in a capitalist society, a conflict resulting from the very accumulation of capital which periodically bursts out in crises and spurs capital on to a continual extension of the market.’ The current renewal of this process – crisis, extension of the market, and amplified capitalist-noncapitalist super-exploitative relations – serves as the basis for renewed imperialism.
But Harvey (2003) adds a new layer to this argument: ‘The opening up of global markets in both commodities and capital created openings for other states to insert themselves into the global economy, first as absorbers but then as producers of surplus capitals. They then became competitors on the world stage. What might be called ‘sub-imperialisms’ arose… Each developing centre of capital accumulation sought out systematic spatio-temporal fixes for its own surplus capital by defining territorial spheres of influence.’
Harvey (1992) identifies ‘a cascading and proliferating series of spatio-temporal fixes’ to persistent economic crisis, which are invoked so as to extend capitalism geographically and across time, usually facilitated by dramatic financial expansion. The role of banks in core and even sub-imperial countries is to indebt poorer countries so that they can be wedged open for the sake of liberalised trade and investment or simple resource extraction. Expansion of the credit system is also the traditional way to address overproduction of goods, as debt allows these to be mopped up in the present with a promise to extract further surpluses to pay the price in future.
According to Harvey (2003,134), these fixes do not result in crisis resolution, but instead, lead to new contradictions associated with uneven development: ‘increasingly fierce international competition as multiple dynamic centers of capital accumulation emerge to compete on the world stage in the face of strong currents of overaccumulation. Since they cannot all succeed in the long run, either the weakest succumb and fall into serious crises of devaluation, or geopolitical confrontations erupt in the form of trade wars, currency wars and even military confrontations.’
The territorially-rooted power blocs generated by internal alliances (and conflicts) within national boundaries, or occasionally across boundaries to regional scale, are the critical units of analysis when it comes to fending off the devalorization of overaccumulated capital. By uncovering these units, it is feasible to root a durable geopolitical theory appropriate for understanding contemporary imperialism. The BRICS reflect this new relationship, for as Brazilian president Lula announced in 2010, ‘A new global economic geography is born.’ However, relying upon financiers such as leading Goldman Sachs executive Jim O’Neill (originator of the ‘BRIC’ meme in 2001) to codify economic power is risky.
What appeared as a strong bloc of BRICS countries at a leadership summit in March 2013 became, within four months, the core of the ‘Fragile Five’ countries, leaving O’Neill to remark that only China deserved the ‘building-block’ BRICS designation (Magalhaes 2013). India, South Africa and Brazil lost vast amounts of their currency values and funding flows once financial capital left these markets in search of the dollar safe-haven once the US Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy – ‘Quantitative Easing’ – began to be ‘tapered’. The same experience of massive capital outflow hit Russia in early 2014, first because of the loss of regional power signified by Ukraine’s government overthrow, and then when Moscow began a blunt takeover of Crimea, Western sanctions threats crashed its stock market.
So notwithstanding the validity of the general approach Luxemburg proposed, in which ongoing capital accumulation entails imperialism reaching into the terrain of extra-economic coercion, this is not a stable outcome. Each situation must be evaluated on its own concrete terms. Dating at least a half-century to when the idea of sub-imperialism was introduced, in Brazil, the concrete settings are vital because contingencies arise that may divert from the twin logics of capital and expanding territorial power relations.
CONCRETE SUB-IMPERIAL LOCATIONS
The new concentrations of southern power began to be evident by the 1960s when new alliances strengthened in the Cold War context. In his pioneering writing about Latin American geopolitics dating to the 1960s, Marini (1974) argued that 1970s-era Brazil was ‘the best current manifestation of sub-imperialism,’ because of regional economic extraction, export of capital typically associated with imperialist politics, and internal corporate monopolization, including financialization.
There are three additional roles for these regimes, today, if they are to be considered sub-imperialist. One is ensuring regional geopolitical ‘stability’ in areas suffering severe tensions: for example, Brasilia’s army in Haiti and Pretoria’s deal-making in African hotspots like South Sudan, the Great Lakes and the Central African Republic. The Israeli and Saudi Arabian roles in the Middle East are comparable, and white-ruled South Africa was, likewise, a Western sub-imperial outpost during the Cold War, what with liberation struggles raging in surrounding countries during the 1960s-80s. Extra-economic coercion in support of raw material extraction is a common feature of this power, when in many cases the role of regional gendarme is not just ‘peace-keeping’ but transferring surpluses from the hinterland to the sub-imperialist capital city, and often from then to the imperialist headquarters, as is especially evident for contemporary South Africa (Bond 2006a, Bond 2006b).
The second is advancing the broader agenda of globalized neoliberalism, so as to legitimate deepened market access. This occurs insofar as most sub-imperial powers are enthusiastic financial backers of the main vehicles for global economic governance, especially the Bretton Woods Institutions and World Trade Organisation. For rhetorical purposes the sub-imperial powers’ foreign, trade and even finance ministries may be less than flattering about global governance, and in the case of the BRICS in 2013-14, may even launch new multilateral initiatives with the stated aim of challenging power. But standing by the IMF even in times of crisis – e.g. the institution’s recapitalization in 2009 and 2012 occurred with notable BRICS support ($75 billion in coordinated aid in the latter case) – reflects the overall role that sub-imperial regimes play: to lubricate, legitimize and extend neoliberal political economy deeper into their regional hinterlands.
The same has been true in the single most important long-term global governance challenge, climate management, where the BRICS (without Russia) lined up as critical allies within Washington’s ‘Copenhagen Accord’ strategy in 2009, both avoiding emissions cuts and promoting the further financialization of the climate strategy through extended carbon trading (Bond 2012; Böhm, Misoczky and Moog 2012). (Later, Russia cemented this function by raising its own greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and then reneging on Kyoto Protocol commitments and withdrawing from the main climate treaty.) This role of propping up global economic and environmental malgovernance often benefits home-based corporations in the sub-imperial countries, but it is also a marker of cooperation and collaboration with the imperialist projects of core countries’ multinational corporations and states.
Another example of where this was not only helpful but necessary was the World Trade Organisation, which in earlier manifestation several BRICS countries had sought to revitalize as early as the 2005 Hong Kong ministerial summit. Free-trade corporate expansion and ongoing self-interested protectionism prevail in an often uneasy mix in sub-imperial economies, but BRICS counterhegemonic activity in the WTO has occurred well within the broader agenda of neoliberalism. According to one of the coordinators of the Our World is Not for Sale civil society network (James 2013), the mid-2013 promotion of the Brazilian ambassador to the WTO – Roberto Azevêdo – to become the body’s director-general was debilitating for resistance by the South’s ‘G-110’ bloc.
The 2013 cancellation of Europe-South African Bilateral Investment Treaties by SA trade minister Rob Davies was considered to be an inspiring case of standing up to the West, but as an exception which proved the rule, and it also confirmed Pretoria’s defence of regional domination against EU intrusion into its immediate hinterland, the Southern African Customs Union. For at the end of the day, in December 2013, Azevêdo was able to arrange a WTO ministerial agreement that put the organization back on track – a notable accomplishment given the failure of his predecessor, Pascal Lamy who hailed from (and invariably supported) the European Union during prior failed efforts.
In this context, what may emerge from the networking of the sub-imperialist elites, as witnessed in the BRICS bloc in its initial formation period, 2008-14, is an agenda that more systematically confirms super-exploitative practices within their hinterlands.
Just as the political carving of Africa in Berlin at the 1884-85 conference hosted by Bismarck drew boundaries mainly benefiting extractive enterprises – mining houses and plantations as well as construction firms associated with capital accumulation in England, France, Portugal, Belgium and Germany – BRICS appears to follow colonial and neo-colonial tracks. Identifying port, bridge, road, hydropower and other infrastructure projects in the same image, the BRICS 2013 Durban summit had as its aim the continent’s economic carve-up, unburdened – now as then – by what would be derided as ‘Western’ concerns about democracy and human rights, with more than a dozen African heads of state present as collaborators. The New Partnership for Economic Development and African Peer Review Mechanism were often alleged to serve as African home-grown policing mechanisms for such infrastructure, but were generally ineffective (Bond 2005, 2009).
However, it is also critical to concede that the forms of BRICS sub-imperialism are diverse, for as Moyo and Yeros (2011,19) remark, ‘Some are driven by private blocs of capital with strong state support (Brazil, India); others, like China, include the direct participation of state-owned enterprises; while in the case of South Africa, it is increasingly difficult to speak of an autonomous domestic bourgeoisie, given the extreme degree of de-nationalisation of its economy in the post-apartheid period. The degree of participation in the Western military project is also different from one case to the next although, one might say, there is a schizophrenia to all this, typical of sub-imperialism.’
The recent period has reignited a fruitful debate about the concept of sub-imperialism and about transitions from sub- to inter-imperialism, and perhaps also one day to anti-imperialism. However, the most critical factor in making this debate real, not just a struggle over semantics between impotent leftist intellectuals, is a different process entirely, one not contingent upon rhetoric from above, but upon reality from below. Reality from below is increasingly tense in each of the main sub-imperialist powers currently seeking unity, the BRICS.
In each, a series of class, social, ecological and political battles has begun to unfold, sparked by unusual events that to the surprise of most commentators, took on national importance: public transport price increases and excesses associated with World Cup hosting in mid-2013 (Brazil); a democracy movement in late 2011, freedom of expression battle involving a risque rock band in 2012, gay rights in 2013 and anti-war protest in 2014 (Russia); a high-profile rape-murder in late 2012 and municipal electoral surprise by a left-populist political party in late 2013 (India); an ongoing wave of rural anti-displacement, local-ecology, anti-corruption and labour protests that number more than 200,000 annually (China); and a massacre of mineworkers in mid-2012 amidst a general uprising of poor people against lack of access – or overpricing – of municipal services (South Africa).
All such struggles are impulsive and impossible to predict, but much deeper class struggles against super-exploitation, ecological destruction and neoliberalism are unfolding constantly in each site. The challenge for ‘brics-from-below’ critics is to link and internationalise as quickly as possible, because their interests and campaigning analyses, strategies, tactics and alliances have many points of overlap – with each other and with the world’s progressive forces. Only then will a genuine global anti-imperialist project become possible, i.e., when anti-sub-imperialists of the world also unite.
Interview with Patrick Bond
Leo Panitch verses Michael Hudson in video below
REFERENCES
1. Amabhungane (2013) Is this what our soldiers died for?, Mail&Guardian, 28 March.
Available at http://mg.co.za/article/2013-03-28-00-central-african-republic-is-this-what-our-soldiers-died-for
2. Böhm S, Misoczky M & Moog S (2012) ‘Greening capitalism? A Marxist critique of
carbon markets’, Organization Studies, November 2012, 33, 11, p.1629.
3. Bond P (2005) Fanon’s Warning, Trenton, Africa World Press.
4. Bond P (2006a) Talk Left Walk Right. Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Press.
5. Bond P (2006b) Looting Africa. London, Zed Books.
6. Bond P (2009) Removing neocolonialism’s APRM mask: A critique of the African Peer
Review Mechanism. Review of African Political Economy, 36, 122, 595-603.
7. Bond P (2012) Politics of Climate Justice, Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu
Natal Press.
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Source: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/91303
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty
"There is, however, a central difficulty with Piketty’s argument. It rests on a mistaken definition of capital. Capital is a process not a thing.
It is a process of circulation in which money is used to make more money often, but not exclusively through the exploitation of labor power.
Piketty defines capital as the stock of all assets held by private individuals, corporations and governments that can be traded in the market no matter whether these assets are being used or not"
David Harvey
See Also :
http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/afterthoughts-on-pikettys-capital-by.html
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Finance Capital and Imperialism extract from Is Russia Imperialist ?
Political Economy Research is publishing an extract from an article called Is Russia Imperialist ? from a Blog called Critique of Crisis Theory run by Sam Williams, the full article which we recommend you read in full is here
http://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/is-russia-imperialist/
We have republished the part of the article dealing with Finance Capital has this has been seen has critical for understanding Imperialism but we are particularly grateful to Sam Williams for pointing out that Lenin saw Japan has Imperialist despite its lack of finance capital.
Please see article on Japanese Imperialism here:
http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/explanations-of-japans-imperialistic.html
For the contrary view that Russia is Imperialist read Michael Pröbsting here :
http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/russia-its-monopoly-capital-and-its.html
Finance capital versus other forms of capital
Under the old capitalism of free competition that reached its highest level of development in Britain during the first three-quarters of the 19th century, businesses were owned by individuals or by small groups of partners. Individual owners of ongoing businesses often speak of “my employees” or “my workers” or “my hands,” as though they actually own their workers outright, though under capitalism they only own their purchased labor power.
What is today called investment banking was just developing in 19th-century Britain and was generally conducted by firms that were separate from those conducting commercial banking. The commercial banks were relatively small-scale enterprises—humble middlemen, as Lenin called them—a far cry from the gigantic universal banks that dominate capitalism today. A business owned by a single “boss” or a small group of partners was typical of the old industrial capitalism of the age of free competition. These relations can still be found in those sectors of the present-day capitalist economy where production is carried out on a relatively small scale.
The situation is quite different with those capitalists who own only finance capital—which I, following Marx and Engels, have called money capitalists in this blog. The bank commercials talk about making your money work for you. But whoever saw a gold bar, dollar bill or checkable bank deposit actually work? What the bank is really saying to the “moneyed public”–owners of usually small amounts of “moneyed” capital—is that by converting their money savings into capital the bank will arrange to have the surplus value-producing working class work a certain number of hours for its customers free of charge. It is only in this sense that money “works.”
Nowadays, stocks, bonds and money market instruments are often owned by mutual funds managed by professional money managers. The individual owners of the mutual fund shares often don’t directly own such assets. The reason that mutual funds are so popular is that intelligent “stock picking” is difficult for small “investors.” Small, and sometimes not so small, individual money capitalists lack the knowledge to distinguish which stocks are “overvalued” on the stock market from those that are “undervalued.” While the stock market is often wrong about the value of stocks, its participants collectively are more informed than most individual capitalists.
A mutual fund embodies the banking principle. Individuals who have surplus money or savings do not have the ability to individually lend their surplus money, so they deposit it in a bank that does the lending and shares the interest income with its depositors. A mutual fund applies this principle to stocks, bonds, money market funds and so on. Very often the mutual funds are actually owned by large universal banks.
The same is true of pension funds. A group of employees, themselves not capitalists, save for their retirement. A certain amount of their salaries or wages is set aside and invested. But the employees are in no position to know what to invest their retirement savings in. Therefore, their savings are pooled and put under the control of a professional money manager who is knowledgeable, or supposedly knowledgeable, and in a position to invest the savings more or less intelligently.
One of the changes in monopoly capitalism since Lenin’s day is that back then the great mass of corporate shares was still owned and managed by individuals.
Today, in contrast, the great mass of stocks, bonds and other securities is managed by institutional investors such as bank-managed trust funds, pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, insurance companies and money market funds. These institutions, in turn, are increasingly owned or controlled by the few universal banks. In this way, “moneyed capital” is transformed into finance capital controlled by a few gigantic banking institutions.
In a country rich in finance capital, there is in addition to the extremely rich people found in all capitalist countries—for example, the Russian and Ukrainian “oligarchs”–there is a large “middle class” of “modest savers.” This middle class comes to include the more privileged upper levels of the working class, who may own some mutual funds or be beneficiaries of pension funds through various job-related retirement plans.
It is quite possible for a country to be poor in finance capital even if it is relatively rich in industrial capital. For example, a large number of factories, mines, and large-scale capitalist farms might be located in such a country, making it rich in industrial capital. Britain is the classic example of a country that in the age of free competition was rich in industrial capital—it was the workshop of the world—while today Britain is not so rich in industrial capital but very rich in finance capital.
The U.S. has evolved in the same direction. While a century ago the U.S. was very rich in industrial capital, today de-industrialization has vastly reduced the relative wealth of the U.S. in industrial capital. However, the U.S. remains very much number one in finance capital.
Not all forms of monetary savings represent finance capital. In India and to a certain extent China, savings often consist of gold jewelry—essentially money material, gold bullion—that is shaped into jewelry. Savings in this form do not represent finance capital or capital in any form. The mere ownership of gold bullion—money—does not entitle its owner to an atom of surplus value. Generally, oppressed countries, with their underdeveloped banking systems, are poor in finance capital. A relatively large amount of savings are held in the form of hoarded money that is not converted into capital. In the more developed countries, “savings” are held in banks, mutual funds, money market funds, and so on.
This is one of the reasons why empirical-minded Keynes, who served in his youth as a colonial official in India, considered gold a “barbarous relic.”
Explanations of Japan's Imperialistic Expansion 1894-1910 by Bill Gordon
Japanese conquest of Korea
"Imperialists in Japan and elsewhere are like drunken men, intoxicated by patriotism and militarism, which are nothing but expressions of their animal instincts. They bleed people white with taxes, expand armaments, divert productive capital for unproductive ends, cause prices to rise, and invite excessive imports. These are all for the sake of the state. Government, education, commerce, and industry are sacrificed to patriotism, which is the root of militarism and imperialism".
Kōtoku Shūsui, a Socialist leader in Japan
Japan emerged in 1853 from two and a half centuries of self-imposed peaceful isolation, but within a few decades the country’s leaders embarked on a policy of aggressive territorial expansion. During the last half of the nineteenth century, the Western imperialist powers of England, France, and Germany established the model for acquisition of colonies in Asia and for the partition of China into spheres of influence. Near the end of the century, about the same time Japan began to capture colonial territory, the United States and Russia also initiated their imperialistic expansion in Asia. This paper will examine four of the most influential theories of imperialism to determine whether they can provide explanations for Japan’s imperialism from 1894 to 1910, when Japan formally annexed Korea. The four theories to be reviewed will be Hobson's theory of domestic market underconsumption that leads to capitalists seeking profits overseas, Lenin's theory of the monopoly stage of capitalism, Schumpeter's theory of inherited warlike tendencies from prior generations, and nationalism's focus on politics as the critical factor. Although other theories of imperialism exist, these four theories cover a broad range of economic, political, and sociological factors that could explain Japan’s imperialistic expansion. This essay's review of Japan's history of imperialism from 1894 to 1910 will show that the theory of nationalism provides the best explanations of the causes of Japan's militaristic actions and colonial acquisitions, although Schumpeter's sociological-based theory seems to provide some explanation for the actions of the Meiji Period (1868-1912) leaders. Section 1 of this essay reviews the key points of the four theories of imperialism. The following section examines some highlights of Japan's history of imperialism between 1894 and 1910. Section 3 evaluates each theory as to whether or not it explains Japan's imperialistic actions during this time period. The final section provides conclusions. 1. Theories of Imperialism Imperialism can be defined as direct or indirect domination of an industrialized country over a colonial territory or another country. Although the theories of Hobson, Lenin, and Schumpeter generally focus on imperialism of European powers, especially Great Britain, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this paper will examine these theories to assess their relevance in explaining the causes of Japan’s imperialist push into other countries of Asia. These three theories and the theory of nationalism have been subjected to various criticisms, but proponents still exist for each one. For example, Nowell (2000) argues for the historical validity and contemporary relevance of Hobson's theory. Schumpeter's "idea still has a large following" (Howard and King 2000, 19), and there have always been numerous supporters for Lenin's theory and the nationalist theory. J.A. Hobson ([1905] 1938, 80-81) identified the taproot of imperialism to be surplus capital in the home country in search of profitable investments in foreign markets. The profits earned by the small number of rich capitalists in the home market resulted in chronic oversaving, since they had a lower marginal propensity to consume than poor workers with wages based upon the cost of living rather than the efficiency of their labor (83-84). Although imperialism does not make sense as a business policy for a nation as a whole due to its enormous military and administrative expense, "strong organized industrial and financial interests" that stand to gain from imperialism find ways to put this expense on the general public (46, 106). Hobson argued that if purchasing power were reapportioned from the rich to the poor, then the home market would provide full employment of capital and labor with no overproduction, and there would be no need for the imperialistic fight for foreign markets (86-87). Lenin ([1917] 1939, 14, 88) expressed the Marxist view of imperialism as the "monopoly stage of capitalism," the highest and final stage of capitalism prior to the proletarian social revolution. Essential features of imperialism include the concentration of production and capital into monopolies (large-scale firms), the merging of bank and industrial capital, the export of capital, the apportionment of the world among the large-scale firms, and the division of territories of the world among the great capitalist powers (89). Lenin also emphasized that the need for raw materials drove capitalists to acquire colonies (82-84). Like Hobson, Lenin argues that surplus capital will be exported abroad for the purpose of increasing profits (63). However, in contrast to Hobson's view that the problem of surplus capital could be resolved by redistribution of purchasing power within the home country, Lenin believed that the wretched condition of the masses was inevitable and that imperialistic expansion by capitalist countries could not be avoided. Joseph Schumpeter ([1919] 1951, 6) considered imperialism to be "the objectless disposition on the part of the state to unlimited forcible expansion." Although Schumpeter does not specifically address Japanese imperialism, he provides a wide range of historical examples to show that nations and classes seek expansion only for the sake of expanding and dominion only for the sake of ruling. The bellicosity of an autocratic state derives from "the necessities of its social structure, from the inherited dispositions of its ruling class, rather than from the immediate advantages to be derived from the conquest" (59). As a country becomes more capitalistic, the energy for war decreases as the "competitive system absorbs the full energies of most of the people at all economic levels" (69). Schumpeter viewed imperialism as an atavism in the social structure of capitalist states, an element from prior history that affects emotional reactions (65). Nationalism as a theory of imperialism goes under several other names, such as "power politics" (Cohen 1973, 231; Mommsen 1980, 74) and "mercantilism" (Brown 1974, 26; Gilpin 1975, 27). The theory of nationalism emphasizes the essential role of the state in imperialistic behavior as a nation seeks to maximize its power, prestige, and wealth relative to other countries. Nationalists consider economic relations between nations to be conflictual, a zero-sum game where the gain of one nation is the loss of another nation. This theory views capitalists as willing to invest wherever profits are expected to be greatest, either in the home country, overseas colonies, or other countries, so sometimes the interests of state leaders and business capitalists may coincide in plans for imperialist expansion. However, according to nationalism, ultimately politics determines economic relations and organization. Nationalists stress national security and national sentiment in international political and economic dynamics (Gilpin 1975, 31). 2. Japan Joins the Imperialist Club Japan forcefully acquired three major foreign territories between 1894 and 1910: Taiwan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5; Korea as a protectorate in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, then as a colony when unilaterally annexed by Japan in 1910; and the Kwantung Leased Territories in 1905 in southern Manchuria when Japan succeeded to Russia's leases after the Russo-Japanese War. This section of the essay summarizes briefly the imperialistic expansion of Japan during the period and the actions of the world's imperialist powers that influenced the course of Japan's actions. Korea occupied a strategically important geographic position just to the west of the southern part of Japan. For the two decades prior to the start of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, China and Japan quarreled over Korea's internal politics and Chinese influence in the country's government. Japan went to war with China over proposed administrative and financial reforms in Korea. As a result of the treaty after the Japanese victory, China recognized Korea's independence. Japan also received a large indemnity; acquired Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula in southern Manchuria; and obtained several other concessions from China. Soon after Japan and China signed the treaty to conclude the Sino-Japanese War, the Western imperialist powers made the first of several moves that would influence significantly Japan's ideas about future imperialistic expansion. Japan observed the Western powers' intense rivalries and imperialistic acquisitions. Only six days after signing the treaty, Germany, Russia, and France forced Japan to surrender its claims on the Liaodong Peninsula, which became a bitter diplomatic defeat for Japan. In 1898, only three years later, Russia pushed into Manchuria and obtained a leasehold from China for the same peninsula Japan had been forced to relinquish. During the same year, the United States, which embarked on its overseas imperialistic expansion about the same time as Japan, annexed Hawaii and the Philippines. From 1895 to 1900, the imperialist powers of France, Germany, Russia, and England divided up China into spheres of influence, which included special railway and mining concessions, leased territory, and promises from China that comparable privileges would not be granted to other countries in a specified area. Between 1900 and 1905, Japan became a full-fledged member in the club of imperialist powers. In 1900, Japan showed its military prowess when 8,000 of its troops joined 9,000 soldiers from the Western powers to fight side by side to defeat the Boxer Rebellion in China. In 1902, Japan and Great Britain signed a mutual defense alliance, a document that in effect recognized Japan as one of the world's great powers. In 1904 and 1905, Japan and Russia went to war over their territorial and political disputes in Korea and southern Manchuria. After the destruction of the Russian fleet, Japan emerged from the Russo-Japanese War as one of the world's great military and political powers. The Portsmouth Treaty to end the war gave Japan control of Korea and the Kwantung Leased Territories. Japan stood as one of the world's powers with a colonial empire of its own. 3. Explanations of Japan’s Early Imperialism This section assesses the four theories of imperialism to determine whether they help to explain Japanese imperialistic expansion between 1894 and 1910. A. Hobson’s Theory The core of Hobson’s theory is the existence of excess capital seeking profits overseas. However, during this period Japan had no excess capital and had to borrow large amounts from Britain and the United States to finance its rapid industrial expansion and its wars with China and Russia. Japan's outstanding foreign loan indebtedness grew steadily, starting from near zero in 1896, to 421 million yen in 1904, and then to 1,970 million yen in 1913 (Lockwood 1954, 254-255). Foreign holdings of government bonds comprised over 60% of Japan's national debt of 2,600 million yen in 1913 (256). Hobson's theory does not hold up as an explanation for Japan's early imperialism because of the relative unimportance of the financial transactions between the home country and its colonies. Although imports from the colonies as a share of total trade with other countries increased from 1.7% in 1894-1903 to 6.9% in 1904-1914 and exports to the colonies increased from 2.7% of total trade in 1894-1903 to 7.8% in 1904-1913 (Cohen 1973, 62), the levels remained very low. Foreign trade made up about one quarter of Japan's economic activity from 1904 to 1913 (Crawcour 1997, 78), so trade with the colonies accounted for less than 2% of Japan's total economic activity during this period. B. Lenin’s Theory Lenin advocated a theory of monopoly capital where capitalists wanted to employ surplus capital abroad to achieve higher profits than the domestic market. As explained in the previous section, Japan had loans from foreign countries and a relatively low level of economic activity with the colonies during the period of Japan's first imperialistic acquisitions. Most of the funds from foreign debt went for military expenditures, and only 3% of the funds went to development of Japan's colonies (Lockwood 1954, 35). Lenin considered the existence of large-scale firms with great economic power (monopolists) and the merging of bank and industrial capital to be key characteristics of imperialism. In Japan between 1894 and 1910, a handful of huge privately-owned conglomerates called zaibatsu increased their economic power. Although some of the zaibatsu such as Mitsui and Sumitomo had histories of more than 200 years, they strengthened their economic position as the government, starting in the early 1880s, sold to them several industrial plants and mines that become very profitable. Each zaibatsu also owned a bank, but the five largest banks' share of loans was only 17% of the total market by 1910 (Nakamura [1971] 1983, 207), so this low figure provides little support for Lenin's assertion of finance capital monopolies being an essential feature of imperialism. Likewise, the economic power of the zaibatsu companies from 1894 to 1910 did not approach anywhere near their domination just prior to and during World War II. Although Japan had made rapid progress in industrialization and modernization up to 1910, it could still be considered a developing country. Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries accounted for 33% of economic output and 67% of employment in 1910. Manufacturing and construction contributed only 23% to economic output, and over half of manufacturing production came from cottage industries employing less than five people. Manufacturing consisted mainly of food products and textiles at 34% each, whereas heavy industry made up only 21% (21-23, 80). In addition to surplus capital in search of higher profits overseas, Lenin stressed the acquisition of raw materials as a major reason for capitalists to acquire colonies. Very little evidence exists to support that Japan acquired its colonies between 1894 and 1910 for raw materials. Korea and Taiwan had no significant known mineral resources except for a small amount of iron ore in Korea, so the only substantial natural resources were agricultural products, mainly rice but also sugarcane in Taiwan. Although Korea and Taiwan provided rice to Japan, especially in poor harvest years, only 18% of Japan's annual rice imports came from these two colonies from 1905 to 1910 (Duus 1984, 171). After acquiring Taiwan as a colony in 1895, Japan encouraged the planting of sugarcane to supply domestic needs. However, Taiwanese land devoted to sugarcane production from 1901 to 1910 was only 7% of the amount of land devoted to rice (Beasley 1987, 150), and Japan imposed a high tariff on sugar imports from countries other than Taiwan, so Japanese consumers suffered from higher prices. The Kwantung Leased Territories had few natural resources, but they did help serve as a foothold to facilitate the development and extraction of Manchuria's natural resources (Ho 1984, 350). Lenin's theory does not help explain Japan's imperialism from 1894 to 1910 due to the nonexistence of capital surpluses, the low level of economic activity with the colonies, the lack of dominance of the zaibatsu, and the low levels of the colonies' raw materials. C. Schumpeter’s Theory Schumpeter believed that imperialism represented the survival of older social structures, such as a warrior class, within a capitalist economy. This theory seems to partially explain the attitudes of Japan's leaders toward imperialistic expansion. Japan had a feudalistic social structure with a warrior class (samurai) until the downfall of the Shogunate in 1868 and the implementation of numerous reforms over the next five years under the new Meiji government. Members of the former military aristocracy took leadership positions in the new government, and the military bent of some of these leaders became quickly evident, as they strongly pressed for military action in the early 1870s to conquer Korea. A majority of the country's leaders decided to postpone this military action to concentrate on modernization and industrialization, but even the leaders who recommended not to go to war did not necessarily oppose the action in theory, only that the timing should wait until Japan became stronger industrially and militarily. Although some authors contend that Japan's imperialistic spirit dated back to before the beginning of the start of the Tokugawa Period in 1600, they provide little evidence as to why such a militaristic attitude would remain entrenched in a people living in a country where peace reigned for about two and half centuries under the Tokugawa Shogunate (1600-1868). Boulding and Gleason (1972, 241-242) argue that Japan's imperialistic expansion was a continuation from several centuries before: "Even before 1600, . . . colonies were established in areas of Southeast Asia, and in 1592 Korea was invaded in an extraordinary, but abortive, attempt to conquer China. . . . But the Meiji government, once isolationism had been abandoned, resumed the imperialistic practices of the earlier era." Lockwood (1954, 7) argues that the coming of Westerners in the last half of the nineteenth century "revived and intensified memories of European ambitions and predatory rivalries dating back to the sixteenth century." Although some leaders in the Meiji Era tried to revive memories of historical events for their own propaganda purposes, little evidence exists that such militaristic attitudes and memories of Western aggression continued in the Japanese people during a period of peace lasting over 200 years. Schumpeter argued that capitalists have no economic incentives for imperialism, and Hobson also considered that imperialism is not profitable for a nation due its huge military and administrative costs. The evidence in Japan's case supports Schumpeter and Hobson since the colonies did not provide profits for the country as a whole. Lockwood (1954, 52) summarizes the effects of Japan's early imperialism: Duus (1984, 147) points out that business leaders during the period of Japan's early imperialistic expansion had much more interest in China, with a "vast population, size, and well-developed commercial economy" that "made its market larger, more penetrable, and more easily exploited than those of Taiwan or Korea."But it is certain that colonial enterprise occupied a subordinate place in Japanese economic development during the first three decades of the twentieth century. And it is likely that whatever contributions were made to Japan's national income and industrial development by political control over these areas were more than offset, even at the time, by the costs of the military outlays, developmental subsidies, and tariff preferences through which she acquired and developed her empire. Schumpeter's theory provides some insights into the reasons for Japan's imperialism from 1894 to 1910, but it fails to explain how Japan suddenly became an aggressive conqueror of foreign territories after over two centuries of self-imposed peaceful isolation . D. Nationalism The theory of nationalism provides the best explanations for Japan's imperialistic actions between 1894 and 1905. The following points support nationalism as the best theory to understand Japan's wars and colonial acquisitions: (1) Japan's deep concerns for national security, (2) its emulation of the imperialistic behaviors of Western powers, and (3) Japanese national ideals and personal characteristics. The United States forcibly opened Japan to the outside world in 1853. Soon thereafter, Japan was pressured by the imperialist powers to sign "unequal treaties," which granted foreigners in Japan extraterritoriality in legal cases and which imposed on Japan low tariff rates for which the imperialist countries did not grant corresponding concessions in their rates. The leaders of the Meiji government, formed in 1868 after the downfall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, considered national security and defense to be the top priority in order to prevent subjugation by the Western powers. The nationalistic policy of fukoku kyōhei (rich country, strong military) emphasized Japan's goals to develop the country economically to catch up with the Western powers and to increase its military strength to ensure its existence as an independent country. Japan fought the later wars against China and Russia in 1894-5 and 1904-5, respectively, to ensure that Korea would not be used by another imperialist power to threaten Japan's security. Japan emulated the imperialistic behaviors of the Western powers. From the beginning of the Meiji Period in 1868, Japan's leaders sought to make the country an industrial and military power on par with the Western imperialist powers. When Japan emerged from its isolation and took steps to industrialize and modernize, the international environment was one of intense competition between powers that tried to maximize their political and economic positions relative to other powers and less developed countries. Overseas colonies provided the imperialist powers with prestige and status, so Japan's leaders naturally celebrated when its empire expanded to include Taiwan, Korea, and the Kwantung Leased Territories. The Western concept of Social Darwinism, with the ultimate domination of the world by the strongest nations, fit well with belief of many Japanese that they were the chosen people of Asia and a divinely favored race. Yukichi Fukuzawa, one of Japan's educational leaders and founder of one of Japan's most influential newspapers, expressed Japan's early imperialistic desires in 1882, "We shall someday raise the national power of Japan so that not only shall we control the natives of China and India as the English do today, but we shall also possess in our hands the power to rebuke the English and to rule Asia ourselves" (Nester 1996, 63). The Japanese people also had certain personal characteristics that supported the country's rapid economic growth and imperialistic expansion. Allen (1981, 15) explains, "Throughout their history they have shown a gift for rapidly assimilating new ideas and practices, a boldness in executing large projects and, above all, a trained and frequently exercised capacity for organization." 4. Conclusion The theories of Hobson and Lenin provide little insight into the reasons for Japan's imperialist expansion between 1894 and 1910 since the economic conditions they considered to be the causes for imperialism did not exist in Japan at the time. Schumpeter's theory of imperialism has some relevance to Japan's case, since the leaders who promoted Japan's wars in the Meiji Period came from the former samurai class. However, this theory does not fully explain Japan's imperialistic actions since the samurai did not fight for over two centuries during the self-imposed peaceful isolation of the Tokugawa Period. Japan's concerns for national security, its emulation of Western powers in their imperialistic expansion, and Japanese national ideals supporting overseas expansion lead to the conclusion that nationalism provides the best explanation of Japan's imperialistic expansion in comparison to the other three theories of imperialism. Although the theory of nationalism sheds the most light on Japan's imperialism from 1894 to 1905, this does not mean that Japan's aggression and colonial expansion represented the best course of action. Kōtoku Shūsui, a Socialist leader in Japan, vividly described in 1901 imperialism's serious drawbacks (Iriye 1972, 75):
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Schumpeter, Joseph. [1919] 1951. "The Sociology of Imperialism." In Imperialism and Social Classes, pp. 1-98. New York: Meridian Books.
See Also : http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/what-is-current-phase-of-imperialism-by.html http://democracyandclassstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/russia-its-monopoly-capital-and-its.html |
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