[lbo-talk] [Pen-l] PBS documentary: "Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream"

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Nov 18 07:39:55 PST 2012


I want to underline my point.

Imperialism is not the cause but the _result_ of capitalist wealth and power. Colonialism & neo-colonialism blocked the development of independent national capitalisms. That also limited the industrial reserve army available to capital in the core. "Globalism," by making nearly the entire global population available to Capital, broke the power of workers in the core to defend themselves.

I believe Doug, both on this list and elsewhere, has argued that imperialism (i.e., neocolonialism) has NOT been the source of super-profits, and Charles Post in an article in HM a few years ago pretty much destroyed the idea of an Aristocracy of Labor leading to opportunism; on the contrary, that "aristocracy" was the cutting edge of resistance to capitalism.

Carrol

Carrol


> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On
> Behalf Of Carrol Cox
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2012 9:07 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] [Pen-l] PBS documentary: "Park Avenue: Money,
Power &
> the American Dream"
>
>
> > What did change at the end of the century was the balance of class
forces.
> This
> > profound shift, rather than sudden appearance of a generation of Gordon
> > Gekkos, is what underlies today's "neoliberal" capitalist excesses. The
> regulated
> > welfare state and modest reduction in inequality were the the product of
> an
> > expanding industrial economy and labour shortages which produced strong
> trade
> > unions able to place some restraint on unbridled capitalism. By the same
> token,
> > the assault on the welfare state and widening inequality are a
consequence
> of the
> > abrupt decline of the labour and socialist movement under the combined
> pressure
> > of new communications, transportation, and production technologies which
> have
> > allowed capital to shed workers at home and tap huge new reserves of
> cheaper
> > labour overseas. Politically, the unexpected restoration of capitalism
in
> the fSU and
> > China also discredited left-wing ideas everywhere, and we're only now
> beginning
> > to see their revival under the impact!
> > of crisis in the older capitalist economies.
>
> This is superb! (And it is my reason for continually referencing the last
> chapter of Wages, Price & Profit.) Capitalists, whether they are nice or
> reptilian, will constantly strive to reduce the wage share of national
> income.
>
> An additional point on the causes of the change in class power: the
> increased power of imperialism.
>
> The traditional account of imperialism as generating superprofits with
which
> labor was bribed was false in every particular. Imperialism was grounded
in
> the power of capital in the core, and its impact was to block the
> development of _independent_ capital in the colonial or semi-colonial
world.
> "Globalism" or the Empire of Capital manifested the development of
> independent capital in China, Brazil, India, etc., thus generating a vast
> new industrial reserve army. _That_ in turn further strengthened capital
in
> the core. (See Marv's report some months ago on a Caterpillar firm in
> London, Ontario.
>
> The Empire of Capital as contrasted with Neocolonialism freed capital to
> move or threaten to move capriciously from one part of the world to
another,
> weakening labor everywhere.
>
> Carrol
>
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