Capitalism, Crisis and Imperialism

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/f The Tutor

Texts

The Tutor will be Simon Renton who ran the very successful classes on Labour, Value and Exploitation earlier in the year.

Lenin’s Imperialism can be found here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/wo rks/1916/imp-hsc/pref01.htm

Organisation and Outcomes for the Class

Maurice Dobb’s Studies in the development of capitalism (chapter 8) can be found here: http://digamo.free.fr/dobb1946.pdf

Each class will be built around two questions and will draw upon the life experience of those attending as well as knowledge of the texts.

Required reading will be limited to two or three short pieces.

At the end of the class you should have secured: • An understanding of Lenin’s Imperialism and its place in the development of Marxist theory • An appreciation of Marxist theories of crisis as applied to the 1930s and the present • An understanding of how the State sustains capitalism in our era and the implications of this for democracy

Further Study Sam Aaronovitch, The Political Economy of British Capitalism, 1979 + Ben Fine, The Elgar Companion to Marx's Economics, 2011* sixty-one short explanations of all aspects of Marx’s economics David Harvey, Limits to Capital, various editions+ David Harvey, A Companion to Marx's Capital* Jim Stanford's website contains much material on the contemporary economy http://www.economicsforeveryone.ca/authors * accessible + challenging

Lectures to mark the 150th anniversary of Marx’s Capital 31 August Das Kapital and Marx’s Economics Professor Ben Fine 21 September Das Kapital, Its place in Marx’s thought and its relevance today Professor David McLellan 5 October Das Kapital and Historical Materialism Dr Jonathan White 7 p.m. in the Library

Additional Reading Emile Burns, Introduction to Marxism – specially chapter 4 access here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/burnsemile/1939/what-is-marxism/index.htm John Eaton, Political Economy, esp. Chapters 6, 8 and 12 http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/bitstream/1/ 15590/1/2125.pdf

Capitalism, Crisis and Imperialism How capitalism has developed over the past century Tutor: Simon Renton On Tuesdays at 7 p.m.

Jonathan White (ed), State Monopoly Capitalism Manifesto Press 2017

Celebrating the 1917 Revolution Saturday 4 November Congress Hall, TUC, London Speakers include Aleida Guevara Cuba Slava Tetekin Russia Brinda Karat India Johanna Scheringer-Wright Germany Professor Vijay Prashad Professor Mary Davis Professor David Lane Professor Chris Wrigley Sarah Badcock Adrian Weir

Key text Lenin’s Imperialism 10 October

Imperialism: then and now

24 October

The last big crisis: the 1930s

7 November

Capitalism’s Current Crisis

21 November

Monopoly, Capitalism and Democracy

Classes start at 7 p.m. The fee for the course is £20 (£12 unwaged).

For this, if you are registered, you will also get access to the resources of the Marx Memorial Library on-line course. This will include on-line texts and also student and tutor interaction so that, if you miss a class, you can catch and up and attend the next.

This folder provides a brief introduction and guide to the literature Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, EC1M 3RU http://www.marx-memorial-library.org/

Our key texts Lenin’s Imperialism

Capitalism, Crisis and Imperialism Class Questions Class 1 Imperialism: Then and Now Question 1 What was new and different about Lenin’s explanation of imperialism ?

Why did he attach such importance to the development of monopoly ?

Lenin wrote Imperialism in exile in Zurich in 1916. It was published in Russia before the Socialist Revolution in summer 1917 when Europe was in the midst of war.

Lenin drew on the work of the British economist Hobson and the Austrian Marxist Hilferding to develop his explanation of how imperialism represented a new stage in development of capitalism and why that stage led to great power rivalry and war.

Lenin summed up the key characteristics of imperialism thus: (1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun.’

He paid tribute to Hobson’s pioneering work but differed from him in stressing that the key motive force was the drive by finance capital to export

finance capital to export capital (not under-consumption at home leading to the export of goods). He also paid tribute to Hilferding in stressing the export of capital was the root cause of imperialism and war but differed from him in stressing that this arose from the development of the monopoly stage of capitalism, the destabilising impact of this on the distribution of the surplus among (monopoly and non-monopoly) capitalists and the need to export capital to maintain the rate of profit and avert crisis. Lenin pays particular tribute to Marx in section 1 for alone foreseeing the development of monopoly and its destabilising consequences for capitalism as a system.

This analysis was later taken forward by the British Marxist economist, Maurice Dobb, in his Studies in the Development of Capitalism.

In chapter 8 he analyses the crisis of the 1930s as a crisis of a new type, the first when monopoly dominated the entire world economy, and documents the massive differentials in the fall in the prices of monopolised and non-monopolised goods. This, he argued, prevented a ‘normal’ resolution of the crisis and hence resulted in the (capitalist) state intervening – but on the side of monopoly: state monopoly capitalism.

Question 2 How far can the current world situation still be understood in terms of inter-imperialist rivalry ?

Class 2 Capitalism’s last big Crisis: the 1930s Question 1 Why did Marxists of the time describe this as the first crisis of ‘a new type’ Question 2 How far was Maurice Dobb correct in saying that Keynesian policies could only provide medium-term mitigation of this new type of capitalist crisis – and entrench monopoly power?

Class Three: Capitalism’s Current Crisis Question 1 Neo-Liberals say that maximising market freedom – eliminating interference in the market by the state (austerity) or by organised labour (anti-union laws) – will result in the most productive use of resources and the best outcomes for all. How can this argument be contested ?

Question 2 How far does finance capital (defined as the fusion of industrial monopoly and banking capital) still dominate the economy and, if so, what role has it played in the unfolding of the post 2008 crisis ?

Class Four Monopoly, Capitalism and Democracy Question 1 What are the political, statepower requirements of finance capital today and how are they secured nationally and internationally ?

Question 2 How far is capitalism compatible with democracy in our era ?