ESTUDIO CUANTITATIVO ESTUDIO CUANTITATIVO

Lenin formulated his conception of imperialism as a specific stage of capitalism for the first time in The War and Russian Social-Democracy of 1914.1 Before this, at the end of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth cen- tury, Lenin had already studied the concentration of capital and the production and influence of monopolies in capitalism. The problem of transformation of crisis development was also the subject of study in these writings. According to Lenin, it is continuously claimed that monopolies can change the develop- ment of crises, but it is forgotten that they cannot totally eliminate them. The same question figures in many of Lenin’s later writings. He also published art- icles on finance capital, worldwide syndicates and the mutual links between monopolies and state.2

In 1915, Lenin published Socialism and War, which already included a formu- lation of all the basic characteristics of imperialism mentioned in Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism: imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, which became the dominating form of capitalism at the end of the last century; the concentration of capital led to the increasing power of syndicates and car- tels in various fields of industry; organised capitalists divided almost the entire globe among themselves and subsumed it under finance control and exploita- tion; free trade and competition were transformed into a monopoly; the export of capital became important in international trade; from a former liberator of nations, capitalism was transformed into their oppressor.3 In writing his work on imperialism, Lenin set out to reveal the ‘economic essence’ of imperialism – and this economic essence was shown to be the monopoly.

Lenin’s study of imperialism was a part of a large and wide interest in the emerging new phenomena of capitalism studied and analysed by Marx- ist and non-Marxist scholars and theoreticians. There are, however, four works on imperialism which influenced Lenin’s own conception more than others: Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital, Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of

1 Lenin 1967c, pp. 657–63; see also Valisyevskii 1969, p. 89. 2 Leontev 1969.

Capital, Karl Kautsky’s National State, Imperialist State and Confederation (and other writings by Kautsky, for example, Imperialism), and J. Hobson’s Imper- ialism. These studies influenced Lenin’s theoretical conceptions more or less directly.4 The idea of the importance of the export of capital and of rentier states stems from Hobson. Luxemburg and Kautsky figured more as negative examples for Lenin, to be criticised for their mistakes. Lenin’s relation with them was highly polemical. Luxemburg’s analysis of imperialism, which was well-known among Marxists in the beginning of the twentieth century, was not referred to in Lenin’s study, but it is known from other sources (such as his note- books on imperialism) that Lenin regarded Luxemburg’s theory as false and that he planned to write a separate analysis to prove it.5

The importance of capital export exceeded the importance of the export of commodities in both Lenin’s and Kautsky’s respective analyses of imperialism. To Lenin, the role of capital export was even more important than it was to Kautsky; the fact that capitalist states become rentier states and live on the rents received from profitable investments in colonies is one of the main char- acteristics of imperialism. As already pointed out, Lenin relied heavily on Hil- ferding’s Finance Capital in his analysis of imperialism; Hilferding excessively discussed both the problem of foreign markets and export of capital. However, he paid more attention than Lenin to the emergence of new protectionism in international economic relations.6 Lenin’s idea of the rentier state stemmed – as readily acknowledged by him – from another main work on imperialism of the time, namely, Hobson’s Imperialism, published for the first time in 1902.7 It is not known whether Kautsky was acquainted with Hobson’s theory, but his emphasis on the role of capital export in imperialist relations is an indicator of the fact that the main ideas of imperialism were shared by many of the theoreti-

4 In the beginning of Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin referred to Hobson and Hilferding as the main inspirations for his theory of imperialism (see Lenin 1967a, p. 684). 5 Leontev 1969, p. 87.

6 Hilferding 1981, pp. 301–10; see also Hilferding 1902–3.

7 Hobson 1948. The factors mentioned by Lenin leading to the increase and necessity of export of capital are, in fact, a combination of both Hobson’s and Kautsky’s theories of imperialism. Despite his critique of Kautsky’s analysis of the relation between the industrial and agrarian areas and production, Lenin, in fact, mentioned the slow increase of agrarian production as one of the factors leading to imperialism via overproduction: ‘if capitalism could develop agriculture, which today is everywhere lagging terribly behind industry, if it could raise the living standards of the masses, who in spite of the amazing technical progress are everywhere still half-starved and poverty-stricken, there could be no question of a surplus of capital’ (Lenin 1967d, p. 723).

cians of the time. The export of capital is in various theories of imperialism also an important factor explaining the stagnation of productive forces and economic development in general. When capital is exported, it is not invested in domestic industry and thus industrial development degenerates.

According to Hobson, the basic facts about modern capitalism are the fol- lowing:

Whatever figures we take, two facts are evident. First, that the income derived as interest upon foreign investments enormously exceeded that derived as profits upon ordinary export and import trade. Secondly, that while our foreign and colonial trade, and presumably the income from it, were growing but slowly, the share of our import values representing income from foreign investments was growing very rapidly.8

On Hobson’s account, the only people to benefit from the new colonial mar- kets are the finance capitalists, or as he prefers to call them, the investors. The manufacturers and trading classes do not benefit from ‘aggressive imperial- ism’:

Aggressive Imperialism, which costs the taxpayer so dear, which is of so little value to the manufacturer and trader, which is fought with such grave incalculable peril to the citizen, is a source of great pain to the investor who cannot find at home the profitable use he needs for his capital, and insists that his government should help him to profitable and secure investment.9

The main cause of imperialism and of the export of capital was that ‘the power of production far outstripped the actual rate of consumption’.10 During free competition, an increase in production leads to the lowering of prices, whereas monopolies and trusts are able to maintain high prices and both limit con- sumption and collect high profits. This is a cause of action which ‘at once limits the quantity of capital which can be effectively employed and increases the share of profits out of which fresh savings and fresh capital will spring’.11 Trusts and combinations of capital cannot invest their profits inside the trusted-

8 Hobson 1948, p. 53. 9 Hobson 1948, p. 51. 10 Hobson 1948, p. 75. 11 Hobson 1948, p. 76.

industry: ‘Everywhere appear excessive powers of production, excessive capital in search of investment … It is this economic condition of affairs that forms the taproot of Imperialism’.12

It is thus not industrial progress as such which causes the export of cap- ital and imperialism, but the maldistribution of consuming power. The gen- eral overproduction is caused by saving, which is explained by a distribution of income that does not follow according to needs. Profits and interests from imperialism are excessive elements of income which have no ‘legitimate raison d’ être’ and no proper place in the normal economy of production and con- sumption. Thus there is a remedy for imperialism ready at hand: if all the classes could convert their needs into an effective demand for commodities, there would not be any excessive capital, nor would there be any fight for for- eign markets. And consequently, there would not be any need for imperialism either.13 If the power of consumption of the population could be increased, the export of capital would become unnecessary, as would the fight for foreign mar- kets.

Unless the power exercised by trusts and cartels over foreign policy is made ineffective, capitalism will necessarily become parasitic, militaristic and undemocratic – all features of imperialism also analysed by Lenin and Kaut- sky. According to Hobson, ‘the whole struggle of so-called Imperialism upon its economic side is towards a growing parasitism’.14 Imperialism also leads to increasing military expenditure and endangers the maintenance of peace.15 Imperialism has a tendency from democracy to reaction because representat- ive institutions do not function in an empire: ‘The antagonism with democracy drives to the very roots of Imperialism as a political principle’.16

Even according to Hobson, imperialism is repressive by nature, and its repressiveness stems from its very economic nature:

Finally, the spirit, the policy, and the methods of Imperialism are hostile to the institutions of popular self-government, favouring forms of political tyranny and social authority which are the deadly enemies of effective liberty and equality.17

12 Hobson 1948, p. 81. 13 Hobson 1948, pp. 82–7. 14 Hobson 1948, p. 107. 15 Hobson 1948, p. 138. 16 Hobson 1948, p. 145. 17 Hobson 1948, p. 152.

Hobson’s final verdict on imperialism was a moral one: ‘It is the besetting sin of all successful states, and its penalty is unalterable in the order of nature’.18 Imperialism is an expression of the lower instincts of man, of the animal struggle for existence which prevents the cultivation of higher inner qualities of both man and nation.

The relation between Lenin’s conception of imperialism and Hobson’s was very similar to the relation between Lenin and Kautsky. Lenin adopted practic- ally all the results of the analysis but did not approve of its consequences. Lenin even directly compared Hobson with Kautsky: neither accepted the economic necessity of imperialism and referred to democratic methods of government as a remedy. But in one respect, Hobson was more honest than Kautsky. Hob- son was a democratic liberal and did not pretend to be anything else. He was consistent in recommending a liberal policy against imperialism. Kautsky pre- tended to be a real Marxist, but in fact committed the sin of revisionism. And an honest liberal is always better than a false Marxist, at least one knows where everybody stands.19

According to Lenin, Hobson’s analysis of imperialism as basically being caused by a redistribution of income by trusts and combinations of capital was thus in principle correct, but the conclusions drawn from it were wrong. Eliminating imperialist politics by increasing the power of consumption of the population is only a liberal’s dream, and doomed to failure. The ‘iron law’ of imperialism, of which monopoly is the economic essence, does not permit any alternatives to imperialism and its consequences, war and barbarism, apart from socialism – an alternative also formulated by Kautsky at an earlier stage of the development of his conception of imperialism. Whereas Kautsky’s theory of imperialism remained essentially the same in practically all his writings on the subject, the strategic conclusions drawn from it varied and it is the strategic conclusions that were the main target of Lenin’s critique.

Most important and, at the same time, most problematic is Lenin’s relation to Hilferding’s Finance Capital, which was perhaps the most influential Marx- ist study on modern capitalism published before the First World War. It gave rise to wide debate. It is not known in detail to what extent Finance Capital influenced Kautsky’s ideas on imperialism.20 Kautsky’s article devoted to the

18 Hobson 1948, p. 368. 19 Lenin 1967d, pp. 763–5.

20 The theoretical influence of Kautsky and Hilferding on one another has been evaluated differently by different authors. John H. Kautsky stated that ‘Hilferding owed a significant debt to Kautsky’s influence’ (1961, p. 114). Steenson claimed that Kautsky was influenced by Hilferding’s study (1978, p. 174). Kraus seemed to agree with John H. Kautsky in claiming

presentation and critique of Finance Capital published in Die Neue Zeit in 1910 did not discuss Hilferding’s study in any detail. It is true that Kautsky21 criti- cised Hilferding’s conception of money (in a similar way to Lenin in his note- books on imperialism),22 but otherwise he presented Hilferding’s ideas more or less uncritically, and devoted the major part of the review to a presentation of his own ideas about the development and explanation of crises in modern capitalism. It is, anyhow, quite certain that Lenin adopted the concept of fin- ance capital and the merger of industrial with finance capital from Hilferding’s work, and it is also rather probable that Kautsky’s discussion of the role of fin- ance capital in imperialism was influenced by Hilferding’s work. It is further quite probable that Kautsky’s idea of ultra-imperialism was an extrapolation of Hilferding’s discussion about the general cartel, which Kautsky reformulated concerning international relations (an idea also discussed in detail by Lenin). Thus, it could perhaps be claimed that Finance Capital was the most import- ant theoretical work discussing the development of modern capitalism during the Second International, a fact explicitly acknowledged by Kautsky. Kautsky characterised Finance Capital as the fourth volume of Capital.23

Hilferding had become an acknowledged Marxist even before the publica- tion of Finance Capital by taking part in the theoretical discussion concerning the transformation problem or the relation between values and prices in Marx’s Capital, actualised by the publication of the third volume of Capital in 1894.24 The essential elements of the idea of a ‘Generalkartell’ or of an organised capit- alism were first formulated by Hilferding in an article ‘The Functional Change in Protective Tariffs’ [Der Funktionswechsel des Schutzzölles] as early as 1903:

in its hunger for profit, capital can no longer achieve what it originally did by exploiting the workers of a factory … so it seeks to do so in another way: by subjecting the entire population to the organised power of capital. The organisation of the working class confronts the organisation of the capitalist class in a unified manner.25

that it is true that Karl Kautsky influenced and even initiated many of the thoughts later formulated by Hilferding (see Kraus 1978, p. 68). The problem may be fairly safely solved by assuming influences in both directions and by assuming that the general ideas expressed by both Kautsky and Hilferding were shared by many Marxists of the period.

21 Kautsky 1910–11, p. 771. 22 Lenin 1963–74d, p. 334. 23 Kautsky 1910–11, p. 883. 24 Hilferding 1973b [1904]. 25 Hilferding 1902–3, p. 275.

The organised capitalist class – organised in cartels and trusts – transforms the state into a tool of exploitation. This new form of exploitation is readily recognised as such by every single member of the proletariat, and the pro- letariat is forced to make an end to this exploitation by occupying the state power.26 This new organisation of capitalism is an immediate predecessor of socialism. The socialisation of production has been completed, not in the interests of the social totality, but in order to increase exploitation of this total- ity to the utmost:

It is the immediate predecessor of socialist society because it is its abso- lute negation: the conscious socialisation of all economic powers avail- able in contemporary society. Yet this is not a centralisation in the inter- ests of the majority of society, but in order to increase the exploitation of this majority to previously unheard of levels.27

In this article, Hilferding was still mainly interested in the new features of trade policy explained by the new organisational forms of capital. The most import- ant feature in this respect is the changing function of protective tariffs. From a protection against foreign competition, they are transformed in the hands of the cartels into a method of eliminating competition on both the domestic and the international market in order to obtain higher prices.28 Increasing contradictions of capitalism are the necessary consequence of the policies of the cartels, and the new colonial policy is a further consequence of this sys- tem.29

Shortly after the publication of Lenin’s Imperialism, some of his comment- ators pointed out that in fact Lenin only presented Hilferding’s ideas in a more popular form.30 Even a superficial study of Lenin’s work on imperialism is enough to prove that there are many ideas common to both works. Lenin seemed to adopt some of the main ideas about monopoly, finance capital and cartels rather directly from Hilferding. Lenin’s first list of the contents of Imperi- alism follows almost point by point the contents of Hilferding’s Finance Capital

26 Hilferding 1902–3, p. 280. 27 Hilferding 1902–3, p. 281. 28 Hilferding 1902–3, pp. 276–7. 29 Hilferding 1902–3, pp. 278–9.

30 Horowitz is a more recent commentator of the same opinion (see Horowitz 1970). Cf. also Gottschalch: ‘Among the Marxist theoreticians Lenin is closest to Hilferding’ (Gottschalch 1962, p. 142).

(at this stage, he planned exclusively to write a critique of Kautsky).31 The order of the chapters in the final version of the study was already different as the discussion of banks was preceded by a study of monopolisation and the con- centration of capital.

Lenin regarded Hilferding as a Marxist scholar and presented almost no theoretical critique of his ideas. In his notebooks on imperialism, Lenin gave only a short list of the contents and a summary of the book without any further comments.32 In Imperialism, Lenin criticised Hilferding for defining finance capital without taking into account the fact that the formation of finance capital presupposes the existence of monopolies. Shortly after the above comment, however, Lenin admitted that Hilferding did, in fact, analyse the concentration of capital and the formation of cartels before discussing finance capital.33 Lenin’s critique was thus rather formal, dealing with the order of presentation and not the analysis as such.

According to Hilferding, the characteristic features of modern capitalism are those acts of concentration which emerge, on the one hand, as the substitution of free competition by cartels and trusts and, on the other, as the close liaisons between industrial and bank capital. It is this relation between industrial and bank capital which gives the capital ‘the form of finance capital, its supreme and most abstract expression’.34

According to Hilferding:

An ever-increasing part of the capital of industry does not belong to the industrialists who use it. They are able to dispose over capital only through the banks, which represent the owners. On the other side, the banks have to invest an ever-increasing part of their capital in industry, and in this way they become to a greater extent industrial capitalists. I call bank capital, that is, capital in money form which is actually trans- formed in this way into industrial capital, finance capital. So far as its owners are concerned, it always retains the money form; it is invested by them in the form of money capital, interest-bearing capital, and can always be withdrawn by them as money capital. But in reality the greater part of the capital so invested with the banks is transformed into indus- trial, productive capital (means of production and labour power) and is

31 Lenin 1963–74d, pp. 201–2. 32 Lenin 1963–74d, pp. 333–8. 33 Lenin 1967d, pp. 710–11. 34 Hilferding 1981, p. 21.

invested in the productive process. An ever-increasing proportion of the capital used in industry is finance capital, capital at the disposition of the