oil and socialism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 11/17/00 12:36PM >>>Though Luxemburg argued that capitalism would collapse if it didn't
continue _extensive_ expansion, I don't find her argument convincing.
(However, such extensive expansion does continue in practice.) That's
because I don't see why capitalism can't have _intensive_ expansion. After
all, when the "frontier" closed more than 100 years ago in the U.S. (i.e.,
when all the lands had been stolen from the Indians), the U.S. economy was
able to make up for it with increased labor productivity (relative
surplus-value extraction), largely based on technological change and
mechanization. (Of course, as Yoshie notes, it also helped to be the
biggest bruiser on the block, allowing the U.S. to dump costs on the less
powerful countries.)

Does someone have a convincing argument that capitalism will collapse if it
doesn't expand geographically?

(((((((((((

CB: I don't think "the" idea is that capitalism never has periods when it retains its rate of expansion of terrritory, that it must be uniform and continuous territorial expansion, that it won't be in ebbs and flows.

Thereby, looking at capitalism's whole history there is evidence that expansion must always be returned to, even with ebbs. This evidence is empircal evidence supporting the claim that capitalism must expand geographically.

The theoretical match for these facts hmmmmmmmm, lets see.

We might start by looking more deeply into Marx and Engels reference to the fact that capitalism constantly seeks new markets.

I would say that it goes back to the competition pressure from other capitalists. Some capitalists, to get new markets WILL expand their territory ( use their states to control countries, force markets to be open, force free trade on the world) because there is no force in the world saying they can't. ( They are the masters of the universe anyway).  The other capitalists must follow suit once any capitalists do this, or else face ruin, takeover, extinction.