[Marxism] re: The Duality of Marxism: is capitalism totalizing or inhibiting?

["M. Junaid Alam" <alam1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Imperialism is by its nature "totalizing", much as is implied by the
term "globalization" today. What this seems to imply is that with the
near completion of globalization, we again begin to experience a closure
of the system, only now it is global in scope rather than confined to
individual states. If so, then class contradictions are bound to deepen
rapidly once again, this time on the global level."

Haines, I agree solidly on your point about closed systems. This
description of yours is the natural corrolary of saying imperialism was
capitalism's safety valve. However, I disagree that the safety valve,
combined with capital's point of origin, constitutes a new closed system
that just exists on a larger scale. If that was true, I think the whole
question I am posing would be moot, since the 'maximalist dialectic'
would have simply taken a qualitative leap from Europe to the global level.

But I seriously do not think this is the case. As I noted before, world
capitalism cannot  - and above all cannot be considered by Marxists -
to be at one and the same time be a totalizing force and a stultifying
force. You cannot postulate that imperialism holds back major parts of
Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while also saying that it sweeps
through and transforms these places along the lines of classic
capitalist development. That is self-contradictory. The only
possibilities are that (a) the poorer countries have not been
sufficiently exposed to capitalism (Kautsky, post-modern Marxism, early
Marx, neoliberals), or (b) the poorer countries are poor because
capitalism depends on maintaining a condition of poverty there to prop
up its riches elsewhere (dependency theory). The case for (b) was laid
out very convincingly  in Paul Baran's '/The Political Economy of
Underdevelopment', /specifically in the sense that the comprador
bourgeoisie is hopeless as an agent of development for national
capitalism in poor countries. And pretty much any political history of
any state that's been the subject of intervention by the US since 1950
bears out the further fact that imperialism has tried to lock poorer
countries into a condition of permanent poverty and subordination.
/
/So when we look at these countries, we are not looking at areas that
have been insufficiently exposed to capitalism - it is just that they
have been fully exposed to that backside of capitalism which is always
seated on the poorer countries while its handsomer front powders its
nose in the advanced countries. Really, this is only the beginning of
the problem theoretically. Because the leadership in China and India are
clearly nationalistic, and capitalist. So what is the real dynamic of
capitalism? Will a few nations join the imperialist club and exploit in
common the poorer ones? Will the ascending nations come to blows with
established ones in asserting hegemony?

Most of all, I don't see how any of these developments lends itself to
intensified class struggle on a global scale, because that would imply a
homogenization that is not taking place. This is why I have come to have
serious doubts about what is called 'increasing pace of globalization'
as if this is a big dragon that is going to consume the whole world.
What I see, rather, is a shift, a reconfiguration, within a pre-existing
system of globalization, with the fulcrum of change being political
sovereignty or lackthereof. It appears to me that you could describe
Marx's original dialectic of capitalism as a contained experiment, in
which a body of water in one container was traveling down a smooth slope
of a bridge to reach another container, at which point the balance of
the whole apparatus would shift. Then, someone introduced a couple other
containers to diffuse the flow of water in more directions, and now the
water scatters in mini-streams in different directions.

Well tortuous analogies aside, I would appreciate reading suggestions.
I'm starting on Wallerstein's 'Decline of American Power', and I read
Lenin's 'Split in Socialism' where he openly recognizes a labor
aristocracy in the West (though insists its importance is minimal)  but
I can't find anything discussing the basic contradiction in describing
capitalism as transformative and moribund at the same time.

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