Ultra-imperialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ultra-imperialism, or occasionally hyperimperialism, is a potential phase of capitalism described by Karl Kautsky.

Kautsky elucidated his theory in the September 1914 issue of Die Neue Zeit. He described the current phase of capitalism as imperialism. In Marxist theory, imperialism consists of capitalist states superexploiting labour in agrarian regions in order to increase both the imperialist nation's productivity and their market. However, imperialism also required capitalist states to introduce protectionist measures and to defend their empires militarily. He believed that this was the ultimate cause of World War I.^[1]

Kautsky noted that before the War, while industrial accumulation had continued, exports had dropped, as a result of a tendency of industry to expand out of proportion to agriculture. He pointed out that growing nationalism in the more industrially advanced colonies would necessitate a continuation of the arms race after the War, and that should this occur, economic stagnation would worsen.^[1]

In Kautsky's view, the only one way in which capitalists would be able to maintain the basic system, while avoiding this stagnation, would be for the wealthiest nations to form a "cartel", in the same manner as which banks had co-operated, agreeing to limit their competition and renounce their arms race, in order to maintain their export markets and their systems of superexploitation.^[1] In doing so, he postulated that war and militarism were not essential features of capitalism, and that a peaceful capitalism was possible.

Lenin disagreed with Kautsky's approach. In an introduction to Nikolai Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy, written in 1916, he conceded that "in the abstract one can think of such a phase. In practice, however, he who denies the sharp tasks of to-day in the name of dreams about soft tasks of the future becomes an opportunist."^[2]

Lenin developed Bukharin's theories of imperialism, and his own arguments formed the core of his work Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. He wrote that Kautsky's theory supposed "the rule of finance capital lessens the unevenness and contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in reality it increases them." He gives examples of disparities in the international economy and discusses how they would develop even under a system of ultra-imperialism. He asks, under the prevailing system, "what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the other?"^[3]

Some Marxists have pointed out similarities between the co-operation between the capitalist states during the Cold War and ultra-imperialism.^[4]^[5] Martin Thomas of Workers Liberty claims that this "since the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in 1989-91, that 'ultra-imperialism' has extended to cover almost the whole globe", but that "rather than being a sharply polarised world of industrial states on one side, agrarian states on the other, with the industrial states joining together to keep the agrarian states un-industrial by force, it is a very unequal but multifarious system, with political independence for the ex-colonies, rapidly-permuting new international divisions of labour, and many poorer states exporting mostly manufactured goods."^[6]

Other commentators have pointed to similarities between Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's theory of Empire and Kautsky's theory, although the authors themselves claim their theory is founded in Leninism.^[7]

Opponents of the theory of ultra-imperialism argue that, whatever similar forms may have existed during the Cold War, since its end, inter-capitalist competition has tended to increase,^[8] and that the nature of capitalism makes it impossible for capitalists to make conscious decisions to avoid behaviour if in the short term it proves beneficial.^[4]