Re: essence of capitalism

11/27/2000, Jozsef Borocz wrote:
    The question of the extent of the capitalist or
    noncapitalist nature of the Soviet system is a vexing one.
    Basically, it depends on where you locate the essence of
    capitalism.  

I agree that in many respects one must consider the Soviet
Union to have been a player in the global capitalist game. 
It chose rapid industrialization as a defense against
external threat, and thereby committed itself to exploitive
practices functionally equivalent to those of capitalist
states.

But the dynamics driving the Soviet economy were not about
the accumulation of monetary wealth - either private or public -
but rather about the achievement of various national goals.

Certainly there is no general agreement about the meaning of
the world capitalism.  None of us can claim to have the
'correct' definition, by any agreed standard.  I look for a
definition by considering these kinds of questions: What was
different / unique about that ecocomic system that grew up
with the Industrial Revolution?  How are capitalist elites
different from aristocratic elites?  How is capitalist
imperialism different than earlier forms of empire building?

I think it comes down to _wealth accumulation_ and the
_growth imperative_.  There have always been people who
tried to amass wealth, but with capitalism you get
wealth-accumulation as a primary driver of economic affairs.
 And with capitalism, you have elites programming a growth
imperative into economies via legislation, financial
pressures, excessive use of debt financing, high land taxes,
limted-liability common-stock corporate form, etc.

And with capitalism you get a certain syle of imperialism in
which wealth extraction is primary and geopolitical control
is secondary.  With globalization, we see imperialism being
refined to pure wealth extraction, with agencies like the
IMF playing more of a role than imperial troops.

It is this particular kind of imperialism that has dominated
the world for the past two centuries, and therefore I think
it deserves to be the primary defining entry in any sensible
dictionary.


    I actually intervened for analytical reasons: I think it
    would enrich a discussion about the possibility of increased
    political violence, the widening (or narrowing) of the
    core-periphery gap, and the future of the world if  we
    considered the structural conditions that are the legacies
    of the Cold War.  

It was very difficult to see at the time, but in retrospect
it becomes clear that the Cold War was primarily a cover for
the consolidation of a capitalist global empire.  We had 45
years of astronomical arms budgets in the U.S., all
justified by the 'Soviet threat'.  But then when the Soviets
fell nothing changed, except that interventionism began to
accelerate.  There turned out to be no 'peace dividend'. 
That's when reality finally clicked into focus for me.

I think the primary structural legacies of the Cold War are 
    (1) a centralized global economy under the control of the
        Bretton Woods institutions
    (2) a single hegemonous military power
    (3) a smoothly-running global imperialist regime
    
rkm