super-profits belatedly

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: Jurriaan Bendien


As regards superprofits, this concept surfaced especially in the development
of the theory of state monopoly capitalism (stamocap theory) by the
Marxist-Leninist camp. But to my knowledge it never had a solid foundation
in economic theory; it had more a moral connotation suggesting that
"excessive" profits were being appropriated. -clip-

^^^^^

Juriaan ,

Here is a more economic than moral discussion of "superprofits" etc. ( "(in
the sense of drawing superprofits from)")

Charles





http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm
And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student of
"British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century" is obliged
to distinguish systematically between the "upper stratum" of the workers and
the "lower stratum of the proletariat proper". The upper stratum furnishes
the bulk of the membership of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting
clubs and of numerous religious sects. To this level is adapted the
electoral system, which in Great Britain is still "sufficiently restricted
to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat proper"! In order to present
the condition of the British working class in a rosy light, only this upper
stratum - which constitutes a minority of the proletariat - is usually
spoken of. For instance, "the problem of unemployment is mainly a London
problem and that of the lower proletarian stratum, to which the politicians
attach little importance..."[9]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#9> He
should have said: to which the bourgeois politicians and the "socialist"
opportunists attach little importance.

One of the special features of imperialism connected with the facts I am
describing, is the decline in emigration from imperialist countries and the
increase in immigration into these countries from the more backward
countries where lower wages are paid. As Hobson observes, emigration from
Great Britain has been declining since 1884. In that year the number of
emigrants was 242,000, while in 1900, the number was 169,000. Emigration
from Germany reached the highest point between 1881 and 1890, with a total
of 1,453,000 emigrants. In the course of the following two decades, it fell
to 544,000 and to 341,000. On the other hand, there was an increase in the
number of workers entering Germany from Austria, Italy, Russia and other
countries. According to the 1907 census, there were 1,342,294 foreigners in
Germany, of whom 440,800 were industrial workers and 257,329 agricultural
workers. [10]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#10>  In
France, the workers employed in the mining inudustry are, "in great part",
foreigners: Poles, Italians and Spaniards. [11]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#11>  In
the United States, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe are engaged
in the most poorly paid jobs, while American workers provide the highest
percentage of overseers or of the better-paid workers. [12]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#12>
Imperialism has the tendency to create privileged sections also among the
workers, and to detach them from the broad masses of the proletariat.

It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency of imperialism to
split the workers, to strengthen opportunism among them and to cause
temporary decay in the working-class movement, revealed itself much earlier
than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries;
for two important distinguishing features of imperialism were already
observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century - vast
colonial possessions and a monopolist position in the world market. Marx and
Engels traced this connection between opportunism in the working-class
movement and the imperialist features of British capitalism systematically,
during the course of several decades. For example, on October 7, 1858,
Engels wrote to Marx: "The English proletariat is actually becoming more and
more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently
aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a
bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits
the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable." Almost a
quarter of a century later, in a letter dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks
of the "worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men
sold to, or at least paid by, the middle class". In a letter to Kautsky,
dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: "You ask me what the English workers
think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about
politics in general. There is no workers' party here, there are only
Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of
England's monopoly of the world market and the colonies."[13]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#13>
(Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface to the second
edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, which appeared in
1892.)

This clearly shows the causes and effects. The causes are: (1) exploitation
of the whole world by this country; (2) its monopolist position in the world
market; (3) its colonial monopoly. The effects are: (1) a section of the
British proletariat becomes bourgeois; (2) a section of the proletariat
allows itself to be led by men bought by, or at least paid by, the
bourgeoisie. The imperialism of the beginning of the twentieth century
completed the division of the world among a handful of states, each of which
today exploits (in the sense of drawing superprofits from) a part of the
"whole world" only a little smaller than that which England exploited in
1858; each of them occupies a monopolist position in the world market thanks
to trusts, cartels, finance capital and creditor and debtor relations; each
of them enjoys to some degree a colonial monopoly (we have seen that out of
the total of 75,000,000 sq. km., which comprise the whole colonial world,
65,000,000 sq. km., or 86 per cent, belong to six powers; 61,000,000 sq.
km., or 81 per cent, belong to three powers).

The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such
economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the
irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of
the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the
predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics
and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on the other
hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great Britain, we see a few
imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and
this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth
century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the
working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in
the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it
has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with
bourgeois policy in the form of "social-chauvinism".[14]
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch08.htm#14>