Does imperialism exist?

I learned something interesting from reading a collection of articles
written against dependency theory ("Dependency and Marxism," edited by
Ronald Chilcote). Lenin's theory of imperialism itself is frequently blamed
for all the sins of Andre Gunder Frank and company.

Typical is Gary Nigel Howe's "Dependency Theory, Imperialism, and the
Production of Surplus Value on a World Scale." Howe basically argues for
the existence of a thing called capitalism, which operates according to
rules set down by Marx. This apparently carries as much weight for some
academic Marxists as Hoyles' Rules on Bridge has for card players. All that
stuff about great nations exploiting weaker nations only confuses things
and gets in the way of the kind of reading favored by cold, clinical social
scientists who sleep with the Grundrisse under their pillow.

Howe argues:

"Specifically, the theory of monopoly capital [in Lenin's Imperialism]
opened the way for a departure from the law of value… In particular, it
allows representation of the historical system of productive relations in
terms of the interest of a restricted group of forces. It is a theory of
*capitalism* dominated by particular *capitals*, and thus it is
fundamentally subjectivist in nature." 

Nothing worse than that subjectivism stuff.

Since Howe's prose has the murky quality that can only be achieved through
the long hard process associated with gaining tenure, allow me to translate
it into ordinary English. Basically, Howe believes that the growth of
capitalism all over the world is a good thing since it will produce
something called "homogenization". In other words, he is fostering
illusions in the potential of capitalism to allow countries like Mexico or
Ghana to join the first world. Although he cites Bill Warren approvingly in
this 1981 article, which appeared originally in Latin American
Perspectives, I strongly suspect that what motivated it was petty-bourgeois
impressionism. Back in the early 1980s, some of the specious "gains" of the
neo-liberal revolution were being hyped in the bourgeois press, including
Pinochet's "miracle". Hence, it was necessary for radicals like Howe to
appear sensible to their colleagues and not wild-eyed or something.

Apparently, the anti-dependency theorists were not alone in throwing Lenin
overboard. I picked up Michel Aglietta's newly republished "A Theory of
Capitalist Regulation: the US Experience" as part of my continuing effort
to keep track of fads on the academic left, or what my mother calls
'mishegoyim'. From comrade Aglietta's 1976 book, a year when many radicals
were putting their Che Guevara t-shirts in trunks in the basement, we learn
that imperialism does not really exist. Putting Magdoff, Emmanuel and Lenin
in his polemical gun-sight, Aglietta blithely assures us that "Like the
power of which it is the most global expression, imperialism is not a
notion that can form the object of any explicit definition that originates
from economic concepts." Right, tell that to the Congolese.

The bulk of Aglietta's book seems to involve a defense of a particular
reading of Capital, drawing extensively on algebra. After I am finished
with a refresher course on mathematics, I might turn my attention to this
weighty tome. Although--who knows--Patrick Bond's characterization of the
academic left in South Africa might prejudice me:

"Political theory turned away into Laclau-ian cul-de-sacs, cultural
analysis became grounded--if that's possible--in barren post-structuralist
soil, and political economy stagnated as regulation theory distracted
attention from classical theory while generating reformist 'post-fordist'
fantasies."

According to Patrick, some SACP intellectuals apparently had drawn from
Aglietta in order to cover for Thabo Mbeki. One supposes that if you are
forced to explain why the ANC is making concessions to imperialism, it is
natural to gravitate to a thinker who denies that it exists.


Louis Proyect
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