Re: [Marxism] Imperialism in 1848 (Was: SACP on xenophobic attacks...)

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote:

> Marvin, I was referring to monopoly capitalism, which certainly did
> not exist in 1848. There certainly have always been empires, but
> there's a big difference between the Ottoman Empire, for example, and
> the phenomenon analyzed by Hilferding and Bukharin.
=========================
I made no mention of the decrepit Ottoman Empire, and it's clear it wasn't
the Ottomans that Marx and Engels had in mind in 1848 when they described
the brutal and contradictory social and economic changes being wrought by
the more dynamic imperial powers in the territories they occupied, notably
the British in India.

It's true the development of monopolies and the drive to export capital, as
well as the rise of Germany, Japan and America , greatly intensified
inter-imperialist competition in the period leading up to WWI, and
preoccupied the next generation of Marxist and other writers.

But, as Shane Mage has already pointed out, it doesn't follow that "there
was no imperialism in 1848", ie. that the British and French empires were
somehow and mysteriously not yet "imperialist" because there was less
industrial consolidation and manufacturing exports still had primacy. Maybe
you could explain further.





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