Imperialism is Capitalism

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Darius871
You're thinking psychology; I'm simply talking about an approach where the general social sciences reluctantly acknowledged that they could only be remotely "scientific" by measuring objective facts (which can only be seen in human behaviors) and then analysing statistical patterns in said measurements, with strict adherence to the scientific method used to great avail in the natural sciences, so as to grasp at least a slim chance of ascertaining truth.

This approach which was widely popular if not hegemonic at least in U.S. academia during the mid-20th century and was getting on the right track, but by the time the 1970's rolled around, the social sciences lapsed back into a cacophony of purely theoretical, quasi-philosophical fluff which, while often making for fascinating mental masturbation for ex-hippy academics, had and continues to have no substance or practical use. Try to guess which epistemological era your theory falls under.

That's not the real problem. You see social sciences can never be like natural science, because of their nature. That understanding has to be known by all concerned. The problem is when you start calling theories principles and laws in social science as you would in natural sciences when there is no conclusive evidence of these things.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It's getting more and more imperialistic (read more monopolistic).

And capitalism is dying for decades now. It's dying longer than Lenin's revolutionary state existed.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro


And capitalism is dying for decades now. It's dying longer than Lenin's revolutionary state existed.

Nah. It's not dying slowing, although it's terminal. The fact that there's less competition in the market place and in international politics doesn't make capitalism terminal. But Lenin was right about capitalism (profits) needing to spread and grow. Becoming more monopolistic is one way that happens. However, there are other factors that affect the rate of profit.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by BeBro


Lenin's theory is a joke. Surprisingly capitalism - which he saw with imperialism not only in his "highest" form, but also in decline from there, even dying - is still there, while 'his' system is gone. The global revolution he predicted in the intro to the French and German editions of his work from 1920 didn't happen, and his economical idea that we would get monopolies everywhere which end competition and stop technical progress doesn't seem to work as well.

During the last years of his life, it would have been rather reasonable to make that assumption, as revolution was spreading around the globe and the Communist movement growing by leaps and bounds. It was only in the last year of his life, when he was crippled by multiple strokes, that the revolutionary tide turned, and he may not have been aware of that.

In any event, it doesn't invalidate Lenin's discovery of how capitalist imperialism works. We still live in an imperialist world, even if direct colonialism is no longer practiced.

[Aeson]

And we may very well have ended up with monopolies everywhere which end competition if we hadn't adopted socialist/interventionist policies to regulate and/or break up those entities.

[BeBMan]

Which of course doesn't fit into Lenin's theory of imperialism where everything in capitalism is about profit. Even social security measures are denounced there as "bribing" the working class.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Aeson
And we may very well have ended up with monopolies everywhere which end competition if we hadn't adopted socialist/interventionist policies to regulate and/or break up those entities.

We still have most of the producers of goods and services in the economy with significant monopoly power. The only people without it are people like independent truck drivers, and we see how they are doing. It's hard to make it in business today when you have to deal with competition.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious


We still have most of the producers of goods and services in the economy with significant monopoly power.

Then why is there still capitalism? I mean if it's indeed monopolies everywhere then why didn't the stuff happen that Lenin predicted?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro


Then why is there still capitalism? I mean if it's indeed monopolies everywhere then why didn't the stuff happen that Lenin predicted?

Mostly because of demographic reasons; 1) women joining the work, 2) better trained workers, 3) more consumers/workers

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Kidicious


We still have most of the producers of goods and services in the economy with significant monopoly power.

Let's see:

I rent from a guy who owns 2-3 small buildings
I bought my car from one of the many independent car manufacturers
I get food from a combination of 3-4 stores (safeway, whole foods, wegman's, giant) and have very little brand loyalty
I buy gas from one of many local retailers. The oil that goes into it is partly subject to OPEC price manipulation, but not subject to manipulation by "Big Oil" as it's usually thought of
I buy car insurance from one of 3-4 major insurers (who I find actually have significantly different rates)
I pay one of the 3-4 major US carriers for my cell phone service
I'm dependent on a local monopoly to distribute my electricity. Technically you can choose the primary supplier, but I'm unsure if this is actually possible.
I'm somewhat dependent on a local monopoly for cable/internet services
I frequent dozens of different restaurants and bars
One of my computers is a Dell and one is an IBM Thinkpad. The components may or may not be subject to monopolies (?).
Media/games producers have monopoly power as enforced by the copyright system.
Clothing and most other consumer goods are pretty open to competition.

I'd say that less than 10% of my expenditures go to goods&services provided by monopolies. Unless you count the government, of course.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by BeBro
Which of course doesn't fit into Lenin's theory of imperialism where everything in capitalism is about profit. Even social security measures are denounced there as "bribing" the working class.

I doubt Lenin was as stupid as you think he was. Marxists recognize that the state serves the interests of the ruling class, and sometimes the class needs to be protected from itself or other sectors of the class. Monopolies hurt other capitalists, so the state needs to break them up in order to serve the capitalist class as a whole.

Social welfare is another example of the state forcing the ruling class to act in its own interests. It is better to pay to make sure those most downtrodden have enough to live rather than let them fester and organize. The state forces capitalists to pay a little so they don't end up losing everything to revolution. At the same time, those reforms were fought for and won by socialists and communists leading mass movements.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by BeBro
Then why is there still capitalism? I mean if it's indeed monopolies everywhere then why didn't the stuff happen that Lenin predicted?

Because Stalinism betrayed the movement. Rather than push for revolution when capitalism was on the rocks from 1929 to 1945, it sought to make peace with imperialism and solidify its own position within the imperialist world order. Again in 1970, when both the Chinese and the Soviets cozied up to the U.S., when it was losing everywhere, gave imperialism enough of a breather to pull back, regroup, and go on the offensive.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I doubt Lenin was as stupid as you think he was. Marxists recognize that the state serves the interests of the ruling class, and sometimes the class needs to be protected from itself or other sectors of the class. Monopolies hurt other capitalists, so the state needs to break them up in order to serve the capitalist class as a whole.

Social welfare is another example of the state forcing the ruling class to act in its own interests. It is better to pay to make sure those most downtrodden have enough to live rather than let them fester and organize. The state forces capitalists to pay a little so they don't end up losing everything to revolution. At the same time, those reforms were fought for and won by socialists and communists leading mass movements.

Then you're abandoning Lenin, and you're wise in doing so, because this his weakest spot. Either the development towards outright monopolism is there, unstoppable and leading to the death of capitalism, as he claimed it happens. Or it is indeed possible to reform capitalism and to limit certain negative effects, which is what he denies, but what we've seen repeatedly (and which strikes me as a much more probable reason for why capitalism is still around) with measures like those concerning social security, anti-trust laws etc., then his fundamental critique makes not much sense. If you can just limit monopolism within capitalism then there's nothing to worry about, no?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Let's see:

I rent from a guy who owns 2-3 small buildings
I bought my car from one of the many independent car manufacturers
I get food from a combination of 3-4 stores (safeway, whole foods, wegman's, giant) and have very little brand loyalty
I buy gas from one of many local retailers. The oil that goes into it is partly subject to OPEC price manipulation, but not subject to manipulation by "Big Oil" as it's usually thought of
I buy car insurance from one of 3-4 major insurers (who I find actually have significantly different rates)
I pay one of the 3-4 major US carriers for my cell phone service
I'm dependent on a local monopoly to distribute my electricity. Technically you can choose the primary supplier, but I'm unsure if this is actually possible.
I'm somewhat dependent on a local monopoly for cable/internet services
I frequent dozens of different restaurants and bars
One of my computers is a Dell and one is an IBM Thinkpad. The components may or may not be subject to monopolies (?).
Media/games producers have monopoly power as enforced by the copyright system.
Clothing and most other consumer goods are pretty open to competition.

I'd say that less than 10% of my expenditures go to goods&services provided by monopolies. Unless you count the government, of course.

You don't have to be a monopoly to have monopoly power. To a CEO of a corporation having monopoly power means that you are competitive btw, which is the opposite of the way that most people think of competition. Such corporations have brand name recognition and lots of employees that do not directly make the products that the company produces. In fact, a good portion of workers in the US and Canada are monopoly workers, called that because they do things like market products. That are only needed when the firm you work for has monopoly power. The goods are usually built by workers in another country.

As far as your rent goes why do you even pay rent? Why don't you buy? It could be because you don't think it's a good time to buy but most people rent because they don't have the money or credit to buy. So that's like monopoly power itself, because someone has the power to make you pay more than you would in another situation.

But rental corporations are the big thing now. They are buying out a lot of the rental apartment buildings just because they have the power to do so and they can charge more rent than these little guys.

I'm not going to bother going down your list if you don't mind though.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by BeBro


Then you're abandoning Lenin, and you're wise in doing so, because this his weakest spot. Either the development towards outright monopolism is there, unstoppable and leading to the death of capitalism, as he claimed it happens. Or it is indeed possible to reform capitalism and to limit certain negative effects, which is what he denies, but what we've seen repeatedly (and which strikes me as a much more probable reason for why capitalism is still around) with measures like those concerning social security, anti-trust laws etc., then his fundamental critique makes not much sense. If you can just limit monopolism within capitalism then there's nothing to worry about, no?

I'm not abandoning Lenin. You just have no understanding of Lenin or Marxism.