I haven’t done a deep dive through Capital vol. 1-3 yet so my understanding on this topic is limited, and I want to see if I have the basics down.
The core problem as I understand it is the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, because capitalism requires that not only do things stay profitable, but that the profits continually increase. This of course is impossible to sustain in a real, finite world.
Imperialism offers a way to delay the inevitable by opening up new markets and exploiting new supplies of labor and resources to keep profits increasing long after the imperialist power lost the ability to accomplish this domestically.
But as the rate of profit continues to fall, ever more aggressive expansion and exploitation is needed to maintain this growth, inevitably leading to conflict between capitalists to divide up the limited markets and resources in a competition to, if not be the winner, avoid being the biggest loser.
Losing access to these foreign markets and resources however starts to become an existential crisis for a capitalist state though, because the internal contradictions have been raised to such extremes that they could only be temporarily treated with imperialist exploitation, and if access to that exploitation is lost, complete and utter financial ruin for the bourgeoisie of that state follows.
So part of it is that the imperialist capitalist state, to preserve it’s own existence, must fight increasingly desperately – to the very brink of death – over control of markets to expand into and resources to exploit, correct? Because otherwise, the whole decrepit system comes crashing down?
But also, there’s an aspect of war itself creating new markets to exploit, isn’t there? An orgy of destruction and death creates a market for weapons, and new opportunities for exploitation in rebuilding and redividing the rubble? If that’s the case, is eternal global war a possible solution to the problems of capitalism? Can a cycle of destruction and rebuilding keep the whole rotten wheel turning indefinitely until the whole planet is poisoned and exhausted of resources? Or do the unsustainable demands of capitalism somehow ensure that the war must spread and intensify to the point of total annihilation?
As a tangential point, could imperialism hypothetically stave off its death a bit longer by becoming interplanetary?
I know I’m missing some big points in here, please fill me in, even though this is all very broad strokes and oversimplified. And if anyone has reading on the subject that’s more approachable than Capital (a pretty low bar), I’d love to read it.
Don’t forget that war also destroys surplus capital! Once society has built too many treat machines and the supply outstrips demand, market value plummets and no one can make any profit anymore. A nice little war cleans out all that surplus and creates shortages to exploit.
Is eternal global war a possible solution? No, because capitalism is terrible at fighting actual wars. For example, right now, the West keeps talking about sending more weapons and even though they’ve spent billions, much of that military hardware is insufficient in numbers and quality. Businesses just clearly are not interested if it doesn’t make them richer.
Further to this point, think of world war 2. Massive rationing taking place and the state actively controlling large aspects of life for both normal people and businesses to ensure wartime production along with massive propaganda and censorship.
In a real, serious war, the state has to exert controls over both private business and people which ultimately means either socialism or fascism and if the wars aren?t serious we have things like Afghanistan and Ukraine which are very likely to end in bankruptcy.
As additional point, think of every revolution that has ever happened. The vast majority happen right after a war or during one which is probably why all these African states are launching coups since Europe has been left weakened by the Ukraine war.
This is how I understand it in any case and welcome other inputs
As anti-imperialists, the focus is on organizing vanguard parties who will take advantage of the internal contradictions within imperialism that lead to imperialist wars. the people’s war will ultimately be the deciding conflict, and as you said, with the imperialist powers being weakened, too busy fighting with each other, the people’s war will ultimately prevail.
vanguardism is controversial no?
why?
I should mention that the bourgeoisie in the US doesn’t pay for war, but rather makes money on war. It’s the working class that’s paying for it.
The imperialist machine funnels money from the working class to the mil-industrial complex to raze foreign countries (directly or indirectly) in order to create conditions rife for exploitation and resource extraction by the bourgeoisie.
When you say that real serious war ultimately means socialism or fascism, you make it sound kind of final, but fascism is still a form of capitalism and imperialism, isn’t it? I think I need to do further reading on fascism.
Fascism is a natural end result of capitalism as but I there are differences in structure. Capitalism is to me anyways, is the false idea that you can have endless and exponential growth in a world where resources are finite. It results in imperialism and is of course the main driver of imperialism but fascism is a bit more of the final form bereft of those falsehoods. Once people start to realize that they cannot in fact grow endlessly, capitalism converts to fascism and the government is restructured in an autocratic fashion in order to exert control.
To better elaborate, at least how I understand it, the United States is an oligarchy and undemocratic where half the time, the president doesn’t even win the popular vote but I don’t consider it fascist but it is getting there. People are looking at either socialism or they are looking for fascism which is something like Trump to seize control directly to fix things (with the implicit understanding that Trump will hurt the “right” people to do so).
I also need to read more on it but one thing that stuck with me is that capitalism is the new change brought about by the factories and shifts of society with petit bourgeoisie and as some note, a step forward compared to the feudal societies of old (which is the idea that the serf labors for the king with at least expectation of the king providing and protecting the serf). It is something of a transitioning period I believe is what some socialist thinkers view it and fascism is a step backwards while socialism is the step forward
There are plenty of nifty things war does for the capitalists: Capping supply and creating demand for goods, accelerating inflation, destroying surplus stock, lending emergency powers to the bourgeois state, reducing the power of unions, normalising corruption and castrating regulatory bodies, making workers need to accept lower wages; it even has a whole market of its own
Yup, “emergency” powers that conveniently never go away…
I am pretty sure was is a very short term benefit for capitalism, and a medium term bit penalty. Because when the war ends, you have masses of new workers trained as soldiers and hardened in war, and with all the deaths and destructions, they are more needed than before to run the production machine, which put them in a position of great strength. Now the worker can fight if they need, they can organise because the military also thought them that, and they can leverage their demands.
This isn’t really theory but people who are worse off are more easily exploited. (Or at least I think Marx and Lenin mentioned it off hand but it’s not really expanded upon) They’re more likely to accept lower wages or worse deals because there’s no better option. It has to do with the balance of power in trade relations.
War creates people who are worse off. It opens up new opportunities for exploitation, and replaces domestic industries with imperialist ones.
As a tangential point, could imperialism hypothetically stave off its death a bit longer by becoming interplanetary?
This sort of loaded question is pushed in a variety of sophistic ways by billionaires, tech investors, the sycophantic press, and credulous rubes across the planet.
No, I don’t think spreading the current planet-burning economic system into space, toward less inhabitable planets, will somehow stop or even slow down the destruction.
Money to be made.
It’s the same reason capitalists aren’t just pumping co2 into the air “for teh lulz” (although many of them do that). Look at Elon Musk, if he could pollute humanity into extinction to own the libs, he would, but he at least understands how profitable renewables will be so he wants to profit off of it.
Yeah, I think I understand why war is profitable, but a lot of Marxist discourse I see seems to imply that the wars will inevitably increase in frequency and intensity. Indeed, some seem to believe that global thermonuclear war is inevitable if capitalism and imperialism is allowed to continue to its logical conclusion. This is the part I’m more hazy on. Unfortunately Marx and Lenin both lived in a pre-WWII world before nuclear weapons and before the full impacts of climate change were known, so I’m not aware of them addressing the possibility of capitalism driving humanity completely extinct before socialism could achieve victory.
Its a misconception to think wars stopped ramping up in intesinty after WW2, we have perptually been at war since WW2
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I mean there’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin
I have read it but I probably need to read it again.
I think reaching such a stage would require capitalism to thwart yet another Red Wave, which I don’t think they have much of a chance thwarting this one. But in my opinion yes, if capitalism somehow could survive another 100 years, I’m sure every dystopian sci fi this society has made would be used not as a warning anymore but as a blueprint, we’ve already seen the dystopian aspirations of capitalism using anything from A.I., to VR, to Neuralink, to blanket destruction of community/critical thinking/trust and truth, in order to sustain itself. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine wars becoming more destructive, pointless, and everpresent, were capitalism allowed by the cruelty of fortune to survive long enough to develop into an increasingly pure, honest, and unadulterated version of itself.
