[A-List] accumulation/financialisation - a query

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, there was neo-colonialism, a term that recognizes that there was a
change from the paleo-colonialism of the era before the Russian Revolution.
Isn't it likely that the reason colonialism changed from paleo- to neo- is
especially because of the Russian Revolution and then the Soviet victory
over the Nazis, in combination with the mass destruction of France and
England, and European colonial powers ( The Great Power Nations). The U.S.
became the head colonialist center, and its relation to the neo-colonies was
based especially in anti-Communism. The struggle with socialism greatly
shaped imperialist neo-colonial policy... To make a long story short. In the
era of neo-colonialism, South Africa was at the bottom end with settler
colonialists still in place there. Many other places achieved greater
political independence, and even economic independence. The colonial nations
that pursued various socialist courses had some level of economic
independence. There was and is a national liberation movement in the world,
and it has an impact on the operation of the laws of capitalist development.
This whole world setup had to be somewhat different in terms of economic
relations than the world that Luxemburg analyzed. Even the countries within
the capitalists' dominance had different economic relations with the
imperialist centers than had existed in the early 1900s and 1800's.
Comprador bourgeois classes had to be established.

With the fall of the Soviet Union , and the consequent collapse of the
ability of so _many_ nations to be at least "non-aligned" or in the
socialist camp, there may be a sort of reversion to some of the same
patterns that existed before there was a Soviet Union; and thus a renewed
relevance of some of Luxemburg's ideas ( and Lenin's ). But I don't see how
analysis of the current form of colonialism can be made without taking into
account this one step forward, two steps backward historical development.
The current period may be more like Luxemburg's period, but must have some
differences because of the Russian Revolution/Colonial Revolutions interlude
out of which it comes.  I don't see going back to Luxemburg only, and
skipping the enormous impacts of events from 1917 to 1989.

Simon Clarke's reverse argument would seem to imply what I am saying. The
return of Russia and so many countries to the imperialist orbit implies they
were out of it before that. Their being out of that orbit had to shape the
imperialist economy to some extent.

The very existence of socialist Cuba now, which probably wouldn't be without
there having been a Soviet Union, and the role Cuba is playing as vanguard
country in the South American revolution is a result of the Russian
Revolutionary world impact. South America is shaping up as a focus region of
the new anti-colonialist struggle. Its capability to do so can be traced
directly to the impact of the Russian Revolution and the history of the
Soviet Union.

We must cognize precisely the laws of capitalist development in the
imperialist countries. We must also, as socialists, keep equally in mind the
"laws" of working class and national liberationist resistence to capitalist
development whose operations was initiated by the Russian Revolution , and
persist, actually still exist, though they may be in a relative ebb compared
to the flow of the late 1940's.

It is winter in socialism now. May Day will come again !

Does anybody really think that imperialism can retain a neo-liberal  world
regime forever ? Already there is a nominally socialist president in Chile,
a site of origin of neo-liberalism. What happens when in the long term
neo-liberalism fails elsewhere ? And all over the world there are Marxist
and socialist ideologies preserved , all in place because of the successful
period of the Russian Revolution and progeny ? Bolvivarianism didn't get
born without significant Marxist-Leninist influence.

I say this without denying the validity of your profound disappointment in
the ANC falling to the rear of the anti-colonialist economic struggle. Nor
denying that Luxemburg's focus on colonialist economic aggression may "fit"
the new aggression of imperialism post-Soviet Union, because the old
colonial nations are suddenly naked before the aggressor again. Any
Communist feels concern that China and Viet Nam have had to take a step
backwards to capitalism in order to take a step forward to socialism.

On the other hand, in the long run, it would seem that U.S. imperialism is
putting its "stuff" out on a limb. Ford and GM are in big time economic
trouble. What was good for GM was good for American capitalism. Can what's
bad for GM really not be a threat to American capitalism ? To me there is
inherent vulnerability to the whole enormous shift of so much physical
production outside the U.S. homeland and its security. What happens ten
years from now when GM and Ford USA are really physically transnationally
located ? And China , with a huge percentage of actual physical production
turns left ? Are the U.S. imperialists selling the Chinese people the rope
with which they will hang the imperialists ?

Charles



From: "Patrick Bond"




Yes, relating to the Russian revolution, that makes a lot of sense. I think
Simon Clarke was putting the reverse argument together recently, namely that

the incorporation of the USSR and its devalorisation during the 1990s was
also critical for a temporary easing of global overaccumulation crisis.

Luxemburg's merits are great in pointing out the superexploitative
relationships between metropole and colony, in contrast to the other
theories of the day. That's why the current interest in her ideas is so
useful, and why the republication of her work is welcome. We work closely
with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Jo'burg, and are holding a colloquium on

her ideas in just over a month. In The Accumulation of Capital, her 2000
words on South Africa's 19th century accumulation trajectory are superb.

The practical problem, here in SA and elsewhere, is that the 'independence
in so many colonies' during the 20th century did not generally harm the
interests of global capital, hence the phrase neocolonialism. In South
Africa, for example, independence in 1994 was an exceptionally profitable
experience for local capital, subimperial political economics, and imperial
accumulation. Last week in Tanzania, my colleague Sufian Bukurura and I
presented an update of Walter Rodney's thesis, How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa, at a University Dar es Salaam conference devoted to Rodney
(available if you like by writing me off list). Though I wasn't in
attendance, I read all the papers yesterday, and I don't think anyone
there - Africa's leading left thinkers - would dispute the argument that the

neoliberal era in Africa was a great boost to capitalist profitability, even

taking into account currency crashes which, for instance, devalued Lonrho's
African holdings quite badly during the 1980s-90s. Even the World Bank
acknowledges now that extractive processes leave most of Africa as net
losers of wealth each year, when one factors in all the other ecological
damage and mineral/petro depletion now underway. That was Luxemburg's main
point: under conditions of profitability squeeze, a more frantic hunt for
surpluses drawn from market penetration of society and nature ensues
(regardless of interimperial rivalries).