“The need of a constantly expanding market for its product s chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere...it creates a world after its own image.”
Karl Marx in Communist Manifesto
‘Imperialism is over’.
Thus said American professor Michael Hardt and his Italian counterpart Antonio Negri in their highly canonised book Empire (2001:xiv), some ten years ago. The book drew praise from section of the left (‘the Communist Manifesto of our times,’ Slavoj Zizek claimed) as well as the right.
Is imperialism really over? Or is it the case that the imperialism has altered its meaning?
According to British Marxist critic Alex Callinicos (2009: 16), “Theory of imperialism is a way of understanding capitalism in its heartlands – what is sometimes called the core of the ‘world’ system”.
Now a days, imperialism generally refers to the dominance of more developed over less developed countries, however, for classical Marxists [Lenin, Rosa Luxemberg, Leon Trotsky, Hilferding, Bukharin, Kautsky etc. Marx himself did not propound any theory of imperialism], imperialism meant “primarily, rivalry between major capitalist countries, rivalry expressed in conflict over territory, taking political and military as well as economic forms, and leading ultimately to inter-imperialist war” (Brewer 1980: 88).
The dominance of stronger countries over weaker was certainly implicit even in classical conceptions. But the focus at the turn of twentieth century was on the struggle for dominance between the imperial powers while colonial countries figured primarily as passive sites of struggle in these theories.
Aijaz Ahmed, however, thinks the conception of ‘inter-imperial rivalry’ in Lenin’s theorisation---who declared imperialism as the higher stage of capitalism--- ‘arose in the course of a conjunctural analysis required by an intense debate over whether a world war was imminent or not, the line that European social democracy was to adopt in case war did break out, the question of voting over war credits in various countries (notably Germany), the question of what revolutionary possibilities might or might not open up in the event of a war and what kind of power block (class alliances) the revolutionary parties were to try to constitute in that event and where – if anywhere - the likelihood of a revolution would be the greatest (Ahmad 2004: 48). Roughly the same position was taken by Russian leader Leon Trotsky and German leader of the social democratic party, Rosa Luxemberg. Kautsky, another giant of the German social democratic tradition, however, thought the inter-imperial rivalries would be reconciled.
As conjunctural analysis, Lenin’s theory was impregnable since the inter-imperial rivalry led to World War 1 and consequently not mere revolution in Russia broke out but revolutionary situations emerged in Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Italy while the colonial world was convulsed by anti-colonial movements.
To counter the revolutionary situation emerging in Europe, the ruling classes resorted to the forces of fascism. Well fascism in many countries helped stem the revolutionary tide ---particularly in Italy, Germany and Spain --- but plunged the world into a new war. In the post-war world, imperialism emerged with new characteristics. Delineated by the USA, the newly emerging imperialism did not possess colonies. And it did not have any imperial rivals. However, a unique situation emerged whereby the USSR, as capitalism’s nemesis, became a rival. With the disintegration of the USSR, world situation took an even new turn. In the post-USSR period, imperialism has assumed even new characteristics.
While imperialism reinvents itself and it is an evolving phenomenon taking many forms, it, however, ‘pursues similar goals: conquest of markets, penetration of competitors and protection of home markets’ (Petras and Veltmeyer2005:12). Hence, the left needs a conceptualisation of imperialism anew that not merely transcends the limitations of the classical Marxist theory of inter-imperial rivalry but help understand imperialism in our age.
To begin with, as Aijaz Ahmad points out, one needs to recognize: “The fundamental novelty of imperialism of our time is that it comes after the dissolution of the two great rivalries that had punctuated the global politics of the twentieth century, namely what Lenin called ‘inter-imperial rivalry’ of the first half of the century as well as what we might, for the lack of word, call the inter-systematic rivalry between the US and the USSR that lasted for some seventy years” (Ahmad 2004: 44).
However, like the religious right in Pakistan, sections of left still theorises ‘inter-imperialist rivalry’ as a vital component of imperialism. On one hand, consolation is sought in the fatalist idea that ‘every empire declines.’ On the other hand, every minor rift between USA and EU or every belligerent statement by Putin is flaunted as proof of the emerging inter-imperial rivalry. Let us deconstruct the reality behind this rivalry.
Inter-imperial rivalry:
Presenting the USA and EU or Japan as competing centres of global capitalist production or emergence of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as US rivals may seem fanciful but this binary is hardly realistic.
The most the Europeans do in the Third World is market hunt and search for investment opportunities. ‘There is no power projection, for the simple reason that there is no power’ (Ahmad 2004: 46). Not only the US military power far greater than that of all Europe combined, it also has 180 military bases in 130 countries (Petras and Veltmeyer2005: 32). Needles to point out that NATO goes only where Washington tells it to go.
It is equally important to note that the formation of EU “– up to and including the launching of the Euro and the European Central Bank – has never been opposed by American capital within Europe, or by the American state. What it has accomplished in terms of free trade and capital mobility within its own region, has fitted, rather than challenged, the American-led ‘new form of social rule’ that neoliberalism represents (Panitch & Leys 2004: 24).
The European and US capital have become interconnected to the extent that the Euro-US economy generates $2.5 billion in commercial sales and employ 12 million workers. In 2003, US MNCs invested $87 billion in Europe, an increase of 31 percent over 2002, and in the same year, European MNCs invested $ 37 billion in the USA, an increase of 42 % over the previous year. Conflicts, it seems, are shadowed by economic interests (Petras and Veltmeyer2005: 31). “The military supremacy over its would-be rivals is supplemented then by the overwhelming power of its currency and finance, and its dominance over the global production of techno-scientific as well as social-scientific intelligentsias, and its global cultural and ideological reach through its dominance over mass entertainment and (dis)information (Ahmad 2004: 46). Eleven of fourteen top media MNCs, for instance, are controlled by US capital (Petras and Veltmeyer2005: 29).
While China may perhaps emerge eventually as a pole of inter-imperial power, it will obviously remain very far from reaching such a status for good many decades, Panitch and Leys think (2004: 25). “Its economic growth itself has aggravated internal social contradictions, along fault-lines of class and region, and China will be lucky if it can survive, through this extremely lop-sided growth period, in its present territorial shape, and may face increasing mass unrest along class lines as well,” Aijaz Ahmad warns (2004: 51). Meantime, Japan remains dependent on American markets and on the security of its investments within the US, and its central bank is anxious to buy dollars so as limit the fall of the dollar and its impact on the Yen (Panitch and Leys 2004: 25).
True, certain elements in the American state are concerned to ensure that its ‘unipolar’ power today is used to prevent the possible emergence of imperial rivals tomorrow can hardly be used as evidence that such rivals already exist (Panitch and Leys 2004: 25).
Death of nation-state:
While a section of left was entangled with ‘inter-imperial rivalry’, liberals and ‘globalists’ announced the death of nation-state. At London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, an MA course is offered in Global Media and Post-National Communication. To understand imperialism in our age, it is extremely important to break this myth of nation-states death.
In the first place, as Callinicos points out, capitalist “imperialism is constituted by the intersection of two forms of competition, namely economic and geopolitical. ...the idea that imperialism involves the convergence of geopolitical and economic competition opens the doors to a much more nuanced approach to the formation of state polity” (Callinicos 2009: 15).
On the one hand, the empire rules through the structures of other states. On the other hand, it is through the state systems that ruling classes maintain extreme forms of economic coercions.
Also, trade and markets are largely determined by state-to-state agreements. The supposedly autonomous and spontaneous process of “globalization” is not merely a product of the growth of the multinational corporations, but also largely an artifice of these state-to-state agreements.
Also, in case of imperial state, this structure plays a pervasive and profound role in the securing overseas markets and the protection of local markets. In the US, for instance, agricultural exports receive indirect and direct subvention. At the same time, through IFIs, Third World countries are pressurised through conditionalities to eliminate or lower trade barriers (Petras and Veltmeyer2005: 12-13). Hence, neoliberalism in the USA “did not mean a smaller or weaker state, but rather one in which coercive apparatuses flourished (as welfare offices emptied out, the prisons filled up), so has neoliberalism led to the enhancement of the coercive apparatus the imperial state needs to police social order around the world” (Panitch & Leys 2004: 29).
However, with regard to Third World, Aijaz Ahmad points out imperial strategy in these words: “The movement of capital and commodities must be as unimpeded as possible but the nation-state form must be maintained throughout the peripheries , not only for historical reasons but also to supplement internationalization of capitalist law with locally created labour regimes so as to enforce ... ‘disciplinary neoliberalism’ in conditions specific to each territorial unit” (Ahmad 2004: 45).
Those announcing the death of state have forgotten how in 1994, when Mexican finances were on the verge of collapse, President Clinton dispatched $20 billion to Mexico to bail out US investors and stablise the Peso. During the 1998 meltdown in East Asia, the US and European governments approved a IMF-World Bank bailout package in exchange for opening up of East Asian, particularly South Korean, economies for foreign take over. In 1999, when Brazil and Argentina faced crisis, Washington pressurised IMF to bail out its friendly regimes there (Petras and Veltmeyer 2005: 11). The recent bail out of banks by President Obama is the latest episode. In a not-so-different context, The New York Times’ conservative columnist Thomas Friedman has summed the debate up. He scorns the Silicon Valley executives who like to say:
We are not an American company...We are IBM Canada, IBM Australia, IBM China...Then, the next time IBM China gets in trouble in China, call Jiang Zemin for help. And the next time Congress closes another military base in Asia, call Microsoft navy to secure the sea lines in the Pacific. And the next time Congress wants to close more consulates and embassies, call Amazon.com to order a new passport (Friedman 1999).
Imperialism and resistance:
There are 65,000 MNCs, with 860,000 affiliates (Petras and Veltmeyer 2005: 72). Only 200 transnational mega corporations, 96% of which are headquartered in eight rich countries, have a combined volume of sales that is higher than the GDP of all the countries in the globe except the nine largest (Boron 2005 :119). When Multilateral Investment Agreement was aborted, 151 changes in the regulations that govern direct foreign investment in 76 countries, were introduced, 89% of them favoured the foreign capital. From 1972 to 1995, $4.5 trillion dollar was transferred to North from South (Ibid 118). Between, 1990-98, $700 billion fled Latin America and ended up in Europe and USA (Petras and Veltmeyer 2005: 19).
Empire-building in our time is driven by systematic and political forces, and reinforced by ideology. Simplistic attempts either to declare the death of nation-state in the face of corporations or to explain the wars by reference to the influence of the military-industrial complex fail to take account of, on the one hand, the relative decline in the weight of the major aerospace and defence sector among the top 500 firms in recent years (Petras and Veltmeyer 2005: 80), on the other hand, the advocates of a world without nation-states, or globalists, fail to understand that the International Financial Institutions are not a higher or new form of government beyond the nation-state, but institutions that derive their power from the imperial states. Given their design, purpose and functions, the rules and structures reproduce and perpetuate imperialism.
And challenge to the empire does not exist in the mystified ‘multitude’ personified by Hardt and Negri. It is the consecutive electoral victories in Latin America of the leftwing forces, on the one hand, and episodic but mass outpouring of dissent at anti-globalisation or anti-Iraq war manifestations offer hope as well as optimism.
Farooq Sulehria
Bibliography:
Ahmad, A (2004) Imperialism in our age. In Panitch, L and Leys, C eds. Socialist Register
Boron, A (2005) Empire and Imperialism. Tr. Casiro, J. London: Zed Books
Brewer, A (1980) Marxist Theories of Imperialism. London: Routledge
Callinicos, A (2009) Imperialism and Global Political Economy. Cambridge: Polity
Friedman, T (1999) A manifesto for the fast world. New York Times. 28 March.
Hardt, M and Negri, A (2001) Empire. London: Harvard UP
Panitch, L and Leys, C (2004) Global Capitalism and American Empire. Socialist Register
Petras, J and Veltmeyer, H (2005) Empire with Imperialism. London: Zed Books