Economic determinism & statecraft
Now there is an unattractive phrase if ever there was one.
So is “renal failure,” but if it’s something that’s going on, it is very important to understand it.
For those who have been following the breakout discussions on finance capital from heterodox socialists, or for those who are interested, I am enclosing a couple of links to pdfs, beginning with the essay “What Theory? The Theory of Mad Money,” by Susan Strange, which was unedited and incomplete when she passed away in 1998. Strange was UK academic in International Relations, and a very signficant influence on the work of Peter Gowan (who has the other pdf I’ll link to, on the Dollar Wall Street Regime). Both, in turn, share many of the finance-capital-as-weapon-of-statecraft preoccupations with two other analysts whose work on this issue I have found useful as a layperson trying to divine the meanings of captial markets: Michael Hudson, Henry C. K. Liu, and Loren Goldner.
Susan Strange’s essay is one among many that breaks with the analysis of imperialism as a question of pure economic determination, i.e., with Hilferding, Lenin, and Hobson (the monopoly capitalism theorists of imperialism). This is posted as a kind of follow-up on Doctrine, because much of this inquiry into the development of imperialism remains outside the Leninist canon, even though its proponents are extremely well-versed in the intricacies of Marxian economics. Some might argue (as I would), that these thinkers are applying Marxist diagnostic instruments more effectively than the economic determinists still holding sway within the democratic centralist left (which has the tendency to reach for the aging holy texts every time something new comes along, and who sometimes watch each other like the residents of Salem for any deviant thinking).
Michael Hudson, who wrote Superimperialism in the 70’s then updated it last in 2003, has said more than once, the reason leftist have such a hard time discerning what is actually going on in the world is that finance capital is now in control, and few of us have been “wired” to understand it. It is a peculiar and ultra-abstract point of view; but the fact that it is having very real and deadly material consequences suggests we need to learn this foreign language.
Hudson, like Peter Gowan in The Globalization Gamble, describes how the political has taken over the financial and used it as a bludgeon against others.
Liu studies and writes about debt, credit, and currency for Asia Times, and is another valuable resource to learn this new language.
Rather than restate their arguments, since I’ve laready linked an encyclopedia, I’ll let curious readers dive in and see for themselves where this is going.
The reason I think it’s important is that if we can’t read the macro-economic signposts, we are unlikely to make sense out of what is happening with us locally.
A good example is the Hudson “housing bubble” pamphlet Lisa linked to an earlier post.
(Oh, and just adding… one of the keys to US dominance in this new financial architectrue has been subsidies to US agribusiness.)
Charles:
Hey, ye olde holy texter here. I have discussed this issue with Michael Hudson and others. Actually, I buy his thesis and that of Henry Liu on the U.S. using its debtor status to control “creditors”, and sort of live off of the rest of the world by borrowing money that they can’t be made to pay back.
But I do have to note that it’s a bit strange when Michael or you say things like “…leftist have such a hard time discerning what is actually going on in the world is that finance capital is now in control”, because right there in the holy text _Imperialism:The Highest Stage of Capitalism_, Lenin says that the finance sector of capital is becoming dominate in the imperialist phase. Monopoly, state-monopoly and FINANCE capital. I focus on finance capital in part because Lenin emphasizes it. Go figure. So on the contrary, I do think and know that finance dominates today, because I’m taking a Leninist view of things. Seems to me that Michael Hudson and you kinda _confirm_ Lenin and Hobson, don’t contradict them. Lenin said finance is becoming dominate about ..oh..50 years before Michael Hudson did. Hello ? Anybody actually reading what Lenin said in the holy text that you are bashing.
I _know_ that Michael Hudson is saying that there is a different , perhaps opposite, configuration of finance capital in 2006 than in 1918 that is doing the dominance. But still, the fundamental observation of the shift to finance capital dominating industrial capital is still in effect; and it didn’t start with Michael Hudson. I may succeed at communicating that to him on the A-List if the current threads there keep going.
And inversions or turning- into-its-opposite is in line with holy text ( dialectics) too. Inversion is standard Marxism in a process. Marxism is process logic. Processes involve things like things turning into their opposite. Genuine Marxist holy thinking has no problem seeing finance capital of 2006 as some sort of inversion of finance capital of 1918. Contrary to the characterisation of Marxism ,correctly used, it is the theory par excellence of change, not fixity. As Engels said it is not a dogma, but a guide to action. You know, the rational kernel of Hegel: Things change. in leaps, like revolutions. It’s the opposite of fixed dogma like religion, God. Some people practice it as dogma, but the holy texts of Marx, Engels, Lenin are quintessential anti-holy text, anti-God, anti-religion. Marx and Engels considered Darwin their theory in natural history because it is a theory of change, evolution. It overthrows a dogmatic idea that all species were created at one time and stayed the same with a theory of how species _change_. It’s anti-dogmatic.
Lenin never said he was laying down all principles for all times. Quite the opposite. Leninism is the concrete analysis of the concrete situation. But some of the principles he observed are still in effect. Not all change is instantaneous. There are patterns of the long run -like finance capital is now dominant -still. Also, the whole rise of the IMF, World Bank, U.S. Treasury or Wallstreet dominance domestically are in line with the Lenin principles holy text, not in conflict with it. They still seem to me to be financial institutions exporting capital to colonies just like 1918 (even as the U.S. is importing capital, too; wow, contradiction; never hear anything about contradiction in the Marxist holy texts, do we ?). The whole Third World Debt syndrome hardly conflicts with Lenin’s imperialism thesis, though today’s world is more complicated with the phenomenon Hudson, you and others espouse. And Marxism is not averse to complexity or complication either. Look at China. Enough to make your head spin. How’s that for Marxists apprehending the negation of the negation ?
Negation of the negation is a big CHANGE, not a fixity, a rock of ages, nor the eternal.
“(Oh, and just adding… one of the keys to US dominance in this new financial architectrue has been subsidies to US agribusiness.)” That would’nt be state-monopoly would it ? Nawww. Couldn’t be. Too old fashion an idea.
In the name of the Father , the Son and the Holy Ghost
Amen
Reverend Brown
1 December 2006, 4:20 pmStan:
Read the stuff, Reverend.
What they are saying is not that finance capital is in charge. Al contrario. They are saying that finance capital is being wielded by dominant states as a political weapon, as a form of hostile statecraft.
1 December 2006, 4:59 pmBob H:
The link about Susan Strange points to an obituary, so here is the link to her paper:
6 December 2006, 1:11 pmhttp://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/workingpapers/1998/wp1898.pdf