July 12, 2024
Source: LINKS
Over the past century, the term imperialism has been used to define different situations and, at times, been replaced by concepts such as globalisation and hegemony. Does the concept of imperialism remain valid and, if so, how do you define it?
The first half of the 20th century, with two world wars and the Great Depression interrupting trade and capital, had undermined the notion that a global capitalism was inevitable. It even seemed that a global capitalism might in fact be impossible. However, backed by its unique economic standing at the end of World War II, the United States set out to carry through the making and consolidation of an integrated global capitalism. This replaced the old imperialism that [Vladimir] Lenin addressed — the direct extension of power over other states through colonisation, a capitalism fragmented into competing empires, the Global South frozen in its development to providing resources to the developed world — with an imperialism of a new kind.
This new imperialism was a specifically capitalist imperialism. Elements of capitalist economic relations were present in the British empire (for example wage labour, freer trade) but they were incomplete. It fell to the US empire to complete the making of a truly global capitalism. Just as the modal form of capitalism is couched in terms of workers selling their labour power through voluntary exchanges, and employers and corporations competing under the market rules of capitalism rather than military or administrative power, the new imperialism looked to replace force with the cloak of state sovereignty and economic freedoms. Colonies were replaced with generalised state sovereignty. This, however, came with a crucial qualification: sovereignty was only legitimate if it supported the economic freedoms of capitalism; namely, the sanctity of private property rights, free trade and free capital flows.
With this came an “internationalisation” of states. States evolved, whether organically or through imposition, to take on responsibility within their territory for both domestic and global accumulation, including equal treatment for foreign domestic-based capital. Rather than globalisation weakening states or replacing them with international institutions (such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), domestic states became more important than ever.
If the new imperialism was predominantly capitalist in form, then what distinguishes “imperialism” from “capitalism”? Defining imperialism in terms of unequal exchange, uneven development and inequalities between the Global North and Global South does not clarify this, especially since the North and South have become more deeply and mutually integrated economically. These unbalanced economic realities describe the everyday characteristics of capitalism as it operates, both at home and abroad, but do not capture where imperialism comes in.
Rather, modern imperialism must be seen as a political phenomenon — a process defined on the terrain of states and directed to the imposition of capitalism as the only permissible way to organise economies and societies. Modern imperialism is best understood as the US-led drive to establish the conditions for universalising capitalism across all states. The centrality of the US state is what leads to this imperialism being referenced as a “US empire”. The United States is not just the latest big kid on the block, but plays a qualitatively distinct role in overseeing the making of a global capitalism on behalf of capital in general.
The United States has a special sovereignty in this system of formally sovereign states integrated economically. Its currency has the status of a global currency and the Federal Reserve acts as the world’s central bank. The US state alone essentially decides which states are not complying with the capitalist rules and are therefore vulnerable to sanctions and military intervention. And the US state reserves for itself the flexibility to break the rules as needed in the name of preserving this system and the indispensable role of the US state within it.
You mentioned Lenin, which is not surprising as discussions on imperialism often refer back to his book on the subject. How much, if any, of his book remains relevant today?
The specifics of Lenin’s theory — monopoly capital, capital’s capture of the state, the politicisation of competition, inter-imperial rivalry creating an imminent proletarian revolution — are each problematic.
Capital certainly tends towards concentration, but this does not negate competition. The history of capitalism’s development is in fact a history of increased competition. National chains undermined local monopolies, internationalisation intensified competition across borders, large corporations had greater capacity to mutually cross sectoral boundaries, and the development of finance and its accelerating mobility brought competitive discipline to the allocation of capital (and the priorities of state budgets).
As for Lenin’s theory of the state, it paid little heed to relative state autonomy and underestimated the future expansion of states and their penetration of civil society. Lenin’s theory of inter-imperial rivalry helped explain the turmoil in the first half of the 20th century, but it did not open the doors to proletarian revolution. And Lenin did not foresee — for understandable reasons — the integration of working classes into their states and the mutual integration of economies and states under the aegis of one dominant state.
But if the specifics of Lenin’s theory fell short, his methodology was instructive: study the economic conjuncture, link it to developments at the level of the state, and put all this in an international context. The problem is that those obsessed with defending Lenin’s specifics have paid too little attention to his methodology. This has undermined their coming to grips with the stunning changes in capitalism — the conjuncture, state and international context — that have occurred over time.
How does what you have outlined in terms of the US empire and global capitalism differ from Kaul Kautsky’s idea of ultra-imperialism?
Kautsky did not see inter-imperial rivalry as written in stone. He considered it possible that capitalist states might come to agreements that limited their mutual self-destruction. Lenin rightly countered that there was no material base for any such sustained cooperation between imperial powers. Uneven development would undermine any such agreement as some states grew faster than others and so saw past agreements as no longer attractive.
What neither Kautsky nor Lenin could foresee was a global economy in which the material base for the deep integration of the imperial powers might emerge, and that one over-riding capitalist state might have the capacity to oversee ongoing stability. If Kautsky could be accused of idealism, Lenin — ever the materialist — left no room in his vision for contradictory capitalist developments that might produce a new kind of imperialism.
Lenin’s projection of inter-imperial rivalry nevertheless continually resurfaces. Many on the left, it seems, are looking to inter-imperial rivalry to do much of the heavy lifting for us in ending capitalism. We should, however, be careful what we wish for. In the absence of a strong left, the dynamics of inter-imperial rivalry would more likely add the extremes and horrors of right-wing nationalism and authoritarianism to the oppressions of liberal capitalism.
How do you define the relationship between the US empire and what are commonly referred to as Western imperialist powers, such as Germany and Britain, but also Japan and Australia?
Imperialism is today a global system, and these states are part of that system. These states compete for exports, jobs and investment, and this leads to hierarchies within this system. They may have periodic tensions or conflicts with the United States, but these states are not independent imperial powers. None have the degree of agency that the US state has. The other states, for example, are not going to initiate interventions abroad without US blessing. And they certainly have no notion of themselves replacing the US’ role. In this sense, the United States is hegemonic.
How does the rise of transnational enterprises fit into globalisation? More specifically, can they operate successfully without institutional anchorage in an imperialist power, and political backing from it, in light of what we have seen recently?
It is interesting that many analysts, including some Marxists, have reversed this question and argued that global corporations are now so powerful that they do not need states and can in fact circumvent them. But as you note, capital and states are not oppositions; capital needs states and, as emphasised earlier, globalisation does not marginalise states but makes them more important than ever. States create the local conditions for accumulation, manage labour, deal with conflicts across territories, address crises, etc.
And as you note, all this must be anchored somehow over and above the integration of capital. Some authoritative body must still superintend the complexities of managing a world of sovereign states, uneven development and popular pressures within states. Currently, there are a variety of forums and institutions that play a role in this regard, but what emerged historically (as opposed to what was “needed” in a deductive way) was that the US state, for contingent reasons, emerged as the indispensable catalyst for making, sustaining and expanding this world order.
In this new imperialism, what relative weight do the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation have today compared to the past?
If “imperialist exploitation” references conditions in the Global South, the main differences between the era of competing empires and the present revolve around sovereignty (none then, formal sovereignty today) and the Global South’s place in the global division of labour (resource extraction then, prominent roles in manufacturing and supply chains today). In the new circumstances, the Global South has grown faster on average than the Global North. Nevertheless, global hierarchies persist on a North-South basis, as do inequalities among the countries of the Global South, for example between the countries of Asia and those of Africa and Latin America.
Military interventions still occur but unlike before, these are not aimed at capturing and holding territories, but defending or expanding the conditions for capitalist development (which, of course, is not the same as improvements in popular conditions). And in contrast to the anti-colonial struggles of the old imperialism, though the legitimacy of the US empire is increasingly attacked rhetorically, the universalisation of capitalism staggers on and virtually no state speaks of leaving the US-led global economy.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, world politics was completely dominated by US imperialism. But in recent years, a shift seems to be taking place with Russia invading Ukraine and even nations such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among others, deploying military power beyond their borders. How should we understand these dynamics within global capitalism?
In thinking about these recent examples of restlessness (and leaving the issue of Russia and Ukraine to one side for now) we should not forget that on the way to global capitalism, examples of instability in the empire were hardly absent — South Korea, the Iranian Revolution, the Congo, Palestine, Vietnam, Venezuela, Syria, etc. At one level, we need to appreciate how ambitious and fraught the project of making a global capitalism always was and remains. A world of formally sovereign states, each facing internal pressures, and intense competition among states vying for their share of global investment, cannot help but come with ongoing contradictions and conflicts.
There does, nevertheless, seem to be something new in the air today. The US empire has lost some of its glamour, strength and legitimacy in recent years and the rise of China as a potential counterforce has posed the question of the permanence of the US empire. The empire is of course not “forever”, but the examples you raise are far from justifying declarations that the empire itself is in imminent danger. For instance, Turkey is trying to carve out some space for itself, but is certainly not challenging the persistence of the US empire. Saudi Arabia even less so.
A good many countries of the Global South are not enamoured with the US empire, but aside from China they do not, even collectively, constitute a significant counterweight. Not only is their economic heft relatively small, but they also have little coherence among themselves other than their public disenchantments with the United States. Most of their economic links are not with each other but with the NATO countries, and their public expressions of disappointments with the empire leadership co-exist with them looking to increase their markets in the United States and attract US investment to their countries. Rhetorical declarations of a multipolar world challenging the United States and its allies are symbolic; they do not themselves portend an alternative to US leadership.
In light of current debates and tensions, how do you view China and Russia fitting into the global imperialist system? And how should we understand the growing US-China rivalry?
The critical point in getting at Russia and China’s relationships to the United States involves clarifying what we mean by “rivalry”. If it means a constant jockeying for higher economic status within the global economy, that is not news — it is inherent in globalised competition. But if, as Lenin posed it, inter-imperial rivalry is about struggles to see who will play the leading role within the global order, then neither Russia nor China, or the two together, currently have either the interest or the capacity to take on the responsibilities of empire.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States provided very significant support to the Soviet Union’s satellites but only hesitatingly so to Russia itself. While the satellites were integrated into Europe and global capitalism, when [Russian president Vladimir] Putin later expressed interest in joining the European Union and a joint European security arrangement, he was rebuffed by the United States. Around the same time, China was welcomed into the WTO as a partner in globalisation.
Why the difference? I cannot say. Perhaps the US was concerned to keep Russia and China divided by keeping one of them inside the US-led world order and the other outside. And of the two, China — with its pools of labour providing cheap goods and potential markets — was more attractive to bring in. Or Russia had to be kept out because if it linked up with Germany and Europe, the US would find itself facing a relatively more confident and autonomous Europe. Such manoeuvring is important to analyse and follow, but it falls short of qualifying as inter-imperial rivalry over who would oversee the making of the world order.
Russia clearly wants to be treated as an important regional power. That Russia looked to the Minsk accords to peacefully settle the conflict between Kyiv and the Russian-speaking minority, waited eight years to act on the continuous assaults on eastern Ukraine, and reluctantly invaded to preserve its port and naval base in Crimea and block the completion of its encirclement by NATO all speak to Russia’s appreciation of its limited capacities. Russia did not go into Ukraine for economic gain or to “take over” Ukraine. as its peace offer in early 2022 made clear.
Notably, Russia’s GDP, even adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), is less than that of either Japan or Germany, and about one-fifth of the United States. Militarily, Russia has boosted its military expenditures greatly since its invasion of Ukraine, but estimates for 2024 still show that the United States spends about six times as much on defence as Russia, and the rest of NATO spends an additional three times as much. It is hysterically mindless to portray Ukraine as the first step in Russia moving on to the Balkans, and even more outlandish to suggest Russia aims to invade Germany.
In the shadow of the Soviet Union’s collapse, China made the decision that its survival as a country led by the Chinese Communist Party depended on the integration with global capitalism that was denied to Russia. This conclusion coincided with the West’s adoption of neoliberalism, with its further opening of markets and acceleration of globalisation. For all its size and successes, China’s GDP per capita is still one-sixth of the United States. So, that project of development still has a long way to go and its global leadership in manufacturing is still dependent on Western markets. Setting Hong Kong aside, its four most important markets are the United States and then three of the US’ most loyal allies: Japan, South Korea and Germany.
One of the indicators repeatedly introduced in pointing to China-US inter-imperial rivalry is the rapid rise of the renminbi becoming a base for replacing the pivotal role of the US dollar. But the use of the renminbi in international reserves — about 3% of total reserves — is only slightly higher than that of the “quiet” Canadian dollar. And the Euro is used in some 20% of international exchanges, but it is no threat to the dollar; if anything, it is integrated into and supports the dollar’s global role. Most importantly, to become an international currency, a national currency must be liquid — those using it must trust the currency’s central authority to not arbitrarily interfere with limits on the exit of capital or how it is used. China cannot deliver on this because its control over its economy rests on controlling its financial system for its own ends.
Militarily, China has no military bases in the Western Hemisphere and only two external bases overall, each beside China. However some 315 of America’s 750 external military bases are in and around the China Sea. They are primarily justified as having to protect Taiwan from being returned to China. Putting Russia and China military expenditure together still leaves them at about half that of the United States, with the rest of NATO roughly matching the Russia-China expenditures.
The US’s aggressive response to Russia and China reflects its determination to have absolute, not relative power. The contradiction here is not inter-imperial rivalry and China winning over Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America to replace US global leadership. Furthermore, China’s past successes cannot simply be extrapolated, particularly because China is facing its own internal conflicts (coastal capitalists versus internal capitalists) and problems (the potential radicalisation of its working classes, environmental constraints, concerns in Asia about Chinese regional domination).
The immediate contradiction lies rather in the fact that in trying to contain China economically, the United States is undermining the liberal trading order that has been central to defining the US empire. Putting a fence around China to exclude it from access to the highest-tech chips has led the United States to extend the fence to include more of the lower-tech chips that go into high-tech chips. Remarkably it has extended its definition of national security to virtually exclude Chinese cars and batteries from the US market (the “rational” element here is the need for a vehicle industry that can be militarised should the occasion necessitate it). This is making its allies nervous, as they wait for China’s counter and worry about their exports to China.
Could one of the unintended consequences of this be the end of globalisation?
We need to distinguish between globalisation slowing down or even reversing a bit, and deglobalisation. More tensions and even conflicts might arise within globalisation, and this could lead to some backsliding. But globalisation is now so materially rooted that it is not going to end on its own. It might change — and it is worth thinking about how apparently small changes might affect some of the specifics of globalisation — but globalisation itself, as a world structured economically around global corporations and supply chains, is not ending.
For example, much is made of China now exporting less to the United States because of the Trump-Biden tariffs. But its exports are still higher than they were a decade ago when the world was considered highly globalised. And, in any case, other Asian countries are picking up some of the markets China lost, while US corporations are increasing imports from Mexico.
Still, the United States is not omnipotent. It faces legitimacy problems at home and — through a combination of arrogance, paranoia and incompetence — unintended consequences abroad with their own dynamics and threats to the empire. The rejection of a peace agreement in Ukraine in the name of weakening Russia has resulted in a strengthening of Russia and its standing, a horrific catastrophe for Ukraine, and a further loss of US legitimacy in the Global South. Pressures on China have primarily led China to escalate its high-tech development and military preparedness. And the nationalist turn in the United States, even when it is performative, complicates the managing of the empire.
Given all this, what should 21st-century socialist anti-imperialism or internationalism look like?
I would emphasise three points.
First, it is a mistake to think that inter-imperial rivalry is going to do the heavy lifting for the left in ending capitalism. The task is rather to build the social forces able to take this on. Moreover, if inter-imperial rivalry were to emerge, given the weakness of the left, it would most likely come with extreme nationalism and make left organising even more difficult.
Second, internationalism begins at home. If we cannot take over and transform our own state, we can neither help ourselves or help struggles abroad (for example by transferring technology to the Global South, addressing the environment in the context of global inequalities, limiting intervention in their societies by our own states, etc). When we struggle at home (instead of making concessions), we create more space for struggles abroad. As The Communist Manifesto put it, the class struggle is always international in substance, but against our own bourgeoisies and states in form.
Third, for all its populism and current confidence, the right will not challenge corporations or capitalism and therefore will not really take on the fight against imperialism. If we understand imperialism today as the US-led drive to universalise capitalism, then fighting imperialism means replacing it with its opposite: the universalisation — starting at home but with an internationalist sensibility — of socialism.
Over the past century, the term imperialism has been used to define different situations and, at times, been replaced by concepts such as globalisation and hegemony. Does the concept of imperialism remain valid and, if so, how do you define it?
The first half of the 20th century, with two world wars and the Great Depression interrupting trade and capital, had undermined the notion that a global capitalism was inevitable. It even seemed that a global capitalism might in fact be impossible. However, backed by its unique economic standing at the end of World War II, the United States set out to carry through the making and consolidation of an integrated global capitalism. This replaced the old imperialism that [Vladimir] Lenin addressed — the direct extension of power over other states through colonisation, a capitalism fragmented into competing empires, the Global South frozen in its development to providing resources to the developed world — with an imperialism of a new kind.
This new imperialism was a specifically capitalist imperialism. Elements of capitalist economic relations were present in the British empire (for example wage labour, freer trade) but they were incomplete. It fell to the US empire to complete the making of a truly global capitalism. Just as the modal form of capitalism is couched in terms of workers selling their labour power through voluntary exchanges, and employers and corporations competing under the market rules of capitalism rather than military or administrative power, the new imperialism looked to replace force with the cloak of state sovereignty and economic freedoms. Colonies were replaced with generalised state sovereignty. This, however, came with a crucial qualification: sovereignty was only legitimate if it supported the economic freedoms of capitalism; namely, the sanctity of private property rights, free trade and free capital flows.
With this came an “internationalisation” of states. States evolved, whether organically or through imposition, to take on responsibility within their territory for both domestic and global accumulation, including equal treatment for foreign domestic-based capital. Rather than globalisation weakening states or replacing them with international institutions (such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation), domestic states became more important than ever.
If the new imperialism was predominantly capitalist in form, then what distinguishes “imperialism” from “capitalism”? Defining imperialism in terms of unequal exchange, uneven development and inequalities between the Global North and Global South does not clarify this, especially since the North and South have become more deeply and mutually integrated economically. These unbalanced economic realities describe the everyday characteristics of capitalism as it operates, both at home and abroad, but do not capture where imperialism comes in.
Rather, modern imperialism must be seen as a political phenomenon — a process defined on the terrain of states and directed to the imposition of capitalism as the only permissible way to organise economies and societies. Modern imperialism is best understood as the US-led drive to establish the conditions for universalising capitalism across all states. The centrality of the US state is what leads to this imperialism being referenced as a “US empire”. The United States is not just the latest big kid on the block, but plays a qualitatively distinct role in overseeing the making of a global capitalism on behalf of capital in general.
The United States has a special sovereignty in this system of formally sovereign states integrated economically. Its currency has the status of a global currency and the Federal Reserve acts as the world’s central bank. The US state alone essentially decides which states are not complying with the capitalist rules and are therefore vulnerable to sanctions and military intervention. And the US state reserves for itself the flexibility to break the rules as needed in the name of preserving this system and the indispensable role of the US state within it.
You mentioned Lenin, which is not surprising as discussions on imperialism often refer back to his book on the subject. How much, if any, of his book remains relevant today?
The specifics of Lenin’s theory — monopoly capital, capital’s capture of the state, the politicisation of competition, inter-imperial rivalry creating an imminent proletarian revolution — are each problematic.
Capital certainly tends towards concentration, but this does not negate competition. The history of capitalism’s development is in fact a history of increased competition. National chains undermined local monopolies, internationalisation intensified competition across borders, large corporations had greater capacity to mutually cross sectoral boundaries, and the development of finance and its accelerating mobility brought competitive discipline to the allocation of capital (and the priorities of state budgets).
As for Lenin’s theory of the state, it paid little heed to relative state autonomy and underestimated the future expansion of states and their penetration of civil society. Lenin’s theory of inter-imperial rivalry helped explain the turmoil in the first half of the 20th century, but it did not open the doors to proletarian revolution. And Lenin did not foresee — for understandable reasons — the integration of working classes into their states and the mutual integration of economies and states under the aegis of one dominant state.
But if the specifics of Lenin’s theory fell short, his methodology was instructive: study the economic conjuncture, link it to developments at the level of the state, and put all this in an international context. The problem is that those obsessed with defending Lenin’s specifics have paid too little attention to his methodology. This has undermined their coming to grips with the stunning changes in capitalism — the conjuncture, state and international context — that have occurred over time.
How does what you have outlined in terms of the US empire and global capitalism differ from Kaul Kautsky’s idea of ultra-imperialism?
Kautsky did not see inter-imperial rivalry as written in stone. He considered it possible that capitalist states might come to agreements that limited their mutual self-destruction. Lenin rightly countered that there was no material base for any such sustained cooperation between imperial powers. Uneven development would undermine any such agreement as some states grew faster than others and so saw past agreements as no longer attractive.
What neither Kautsky nor Lenin could foresee was a global economy in which the material base for the deep integration of the imperial powers might emerge, and that one over-riding capitalist state might have the capacity to oversee ongoing stability. If Kautsky could be accused of idealism, Lenin — ever the materialist — left no room in his vision for contradictory capitalist developments that might produce a new kind of imperialism.
Lenin’s projection of inter-imperial rivalry nevertheless continually resurfaces. Many on the left, it seems, are looking to inter-imperial rivalry to do much of the heavy lifting for us in ending capitalism. We should, however, be careful what we wish for. In the absence of a strong left, the dynamics of inter-imperial rivalry would more likely add the extremes and horrors of right-wing nationalism and authoritarianism to the oppressions of liberal capitalism.
How do you define the relationship between the US empire and what are commonly referred to as Western imperialist powers, such as Germany and Britain, but also Japan and Australia?
Imperialism is today a global system, and these states are part of that system. These states compete for exports, jobs and investment, and this leads to hierarchies within this system. They may have periodic tensions or conflicts with the United States, but these states are not independent imperial powers. None have the degree of agency that the US state has. The other states, for example, are not going to initiate interventions abroad without US blessing. And they certainly have no notion of themselves replacing the US’ role. In this sense, the United States is hegemonic.
How does the rise of transnational enterprises fit into globalisation? More specifically, can they operate successfully without institutional anchorage in an imperialist power, and political backing from it, in light of what we have seen recently?
It is interesting that many analysts, including some Marxists, have reversed this question and argued that global corporations are now so powerful that they do not need states and can in fact circumvent them. But as you note, capital and states are not oppositions; capital needs states and, as emphasised earlier, globalisation does not marginalise states but makes them more important than ever. States create the local conditions for accumulation, manage labour, deal with conflicts across territories, address crises, etc.
And as you note, all this must be anchored somehow over and above the integration of capital. Some authoritative body must still superintend the complexities of managing a world of sovereign states, uneven development and popular pressures within states. Currently, there are a variety of forums and institutions that play a role in this regard, but what emerged historically (as opposed to what was “needed” in a deductive way) was that the US state, for contingent reasons, emerged as the indispensable catalyst for making, sustaining and expanding this world order.
In this new imperialism, what relative weight do the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation have today compared to the past?
If “imperialist exploitation” references conditions in the Global South, the main differences between the era of competing empires and the present revolve around sovereignty (none then, formal sovereignty today) and the Global South’s place in the global division of labour (resource extraction then, prominent roles in manufacturing and supply chains today). In the new circumstances, the Global South has grown faster on average than the Global North. Nevertheless, global hierarchies persist on a North-South basis, as do inequalities among the countries of the Global South, for example between the countries of Asia and those of Africa and Latin America.
Military interventions still occur but unlike before, these are not aimed at capturing and holding territories, but defending or expanding the conditions for capitalist development (which, of course, is not the same as improvements in popular conditions). And in contrast to the anti-colonial struggles of the old imperialism, though the legitimacy of the US empire is increasingly attacked rhetorically, the universalisation of capitalism staggers on and virtually no state speaks of leaving the US-led global economy.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, world politics was completely dominated by US imperialism. But in recent years, a shift seems to be taking place with Russia invading Ukraine and even nations such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among others, deploying military power beyond their borders. How should we understand these dynamics within global capitalism?
In thinking about these recent examples of restlessness (and leaving the issue of Russia and Ukraine to one side for now) we should not forget that on the way to global capitalism, examples of instability in the empire were hardly absent — South Korea, the Iranian Revolution, the Congo, Palestine, Vietnam, Venezuela, Syria, etc. At one level, we need to appreciate how ambitious and fraught the project of making a global capitalism always was and remains. A world of formally sovereign states, each facing internal pressures, and intense competition among states vying for their share of global investment, cannot help but come with ongoing contradictions and conflicts.
There does, nevertheless, seem to be something new in the air today. The US empire has lost some of its glamour, strength and legitimacy in recent years and the rise of China as a potential counterforce has posed the question of the permanence of the US empire. The empire is of course not “forever”, but the examples you raise are far from justifying declarations that the empire itself is in imminent danger. For instance, Turkey is trying to carve out some space for itself, but is certainly not challenging the persistence of the US empire. Saudi Arabia even less so.
A good many countries of the Global South are not enamoured with the US empire, but aside from China they do not, even collectively, constitute a significant counterweight. Not only is their economic heft relatively small, but they also have little coherence among themselves other than their public disenchantments with the United States. Most of their economic links are not with each other but with the NATO countries, and their public expressions of disappointments with the empire leadership co-exist with them looking to increase their markets in the United States and attract US investment to their countries. Rhetorical declarations of a multipolar world challenging the United States and its allies are symbolic; they do not themselves portend an alternative to US leadership.
In light of current debates and tensions, how do you view China and Russia fitting into the global imperialist system? And how should we understand the growing US-China rivalry?
The critical point in getting at Russia and China’s relationships to the United States involves clarifying what we mean by “rivalry”. If it means a constant jockeying for higher economic status within the global economy, that is not news — it is inherent in globalised competition. But if, as Lenin posed it, inter-imperial rivalry is about struggles to see who will play the leading role within the global order, then neither Russia nor China, or the two together, currently have either the interest or the capacity to take on the responsibilities of empire.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States provided very significant support to the Soviet Union’s satellites but only hesitatingly so to Russia itself. While the satellites were integrated into Europe and global capitalism, when [Russian president Vladimir] Putin later expressed interest in joining the European Union and a joint European security arrangement, he was rebuffed by the United States. Around the same time, China was welcomed into the WTO as a partner in globalisation.
Why the difference? I cannot say. Perhaps the US was concerned to keep Russia and China divided by keeping one of them inside the US-led world order and the other outside. And of the two, China — with its pools of labour providing cheap goods and potential markets — was more attractive to bring in. Or Russia had to be kept out because if it linked up with Germany and Europe, the US would find itself facing a relatively more confident and autonomous Europe. Such manoeuvring is important to analyse and follow, but it falls short of qualifying as inter-imperial rivalry over who would oversee the making of the world order.
Russia clearly wants to be treated as an important regional power. That Russia looked to the Minsk accords to peacefully settle the conflict between Kyiv and the Russian-speaking minority, waited eight years to act on the continuous assaults on eastern Ukraine, and reluctantly invaded to preserve its port and naval base in Crimea and block the completion of its encirclement by NATO all speak to Russia’s appreciation of its limited capacities. Russia did not go into Ukraine for economic gain or to “take over” Ukraine. as its peace offer in early 2022 made clear.
Notably, Russia’s GDP, even adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), is less than that of either Japan or Germany, and about one-fifth of the United States. Militarily, Russia has boosted its military expenditures greatly since its invasion of Ukraine, but estimates for 2024 still show that the United States spends about six times as much on defence as Russia, and the rest of NATO spends an additional three times as much. It is hysterically mindless to portray Ukraine as the first step in Russia moving on to the Balkans, and even more outlandish to suggest Russia aims to invade Germany.
In the shadow of the Soviet Union’s collapse, China made the decision that its survival as a country led by the Chinese Communist Party depended on the integration with global capitalism that was denied to Russia. This conclusion coincided with the West’s adoption of neoliberalism, with its further opening of markets and acceleration of globalisation. For all its size and successes, China’s GDP per capita is still one-sixth of the United States. So, that project of development still has a long way to go and its global leadership in manufacturing is still dependent on Western markets. Setting Hong Kong aside, its four most important markets are the United States and then three of the US’ most loyal allies: Japan, South Korea and Germany.
One of the indicators repeatedly introduced in pointing to China-US inter-imperial rivalry is the rapid rise of the renminbi becoming a base for replacing the pivotal role of the US dollar. But the use of the renminbi in international reserves — about 3% of total reserves — is only slightly higher than that of the “quiet” Canadian dollar. And the Euro is used in some 20% of international exchanges, but it is no threat to the dollar; if anything, it is integrated into and supports the dollar’s global role. Most importantly, to become an international currency, a national currency must be liquid — those using it must trust the currency’s central authority to not arbitrarily interfere with limits on the exit of capital or how it is used. China cannot deliver on this because its control over its economy rests on controlling its financial system for its own ends.
Militarily, China has no military bases in the Western Hemisphere and only two external bases overall, each beside China. However some 315 of America’s 750 external military bases are in and around the China Sea. They are primarily justified as having to protect Taiwan from being returned to China. Putting Russia and China military expenditure together still leaves them at about half that of the United States, with the rest of NATO roughly matching the Russia-China expenditures.
The US’s aggressive response to Russia and China reflects its determination to have absolute, not relative power. The contradiction here is not inter-imperial rivalry and China winning over Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America to replace US global leadership. Furthermore, China’s past successes cannot simply be extrapolated, particularly because China is facing its own internal conflicts (coastal capitalists versus internal capitalists) and problems (the potential radicalisation of its working classes, environmental constraints, concerns in Asia about Chinese regional domination).
The immediate contradiction lies rather in the fact that in trying to contain China economically, the United States is undermining the liberal trading order that has been central to defining the US empire. Putting a fence around China to exclude it from access to the highest-tech chips has led the United States to extend the fence to include more of the lower-tech chips that go into high-tech chips. Remarkably it has extended its definition of national security to virtually exclude Chinese cars and batteries from the US market (the “rational” element here is the need for a vehicle industry that can be militarised should the occasion necessitate it). This is making its allies nervous, as they wait for China’s counter and worry about their exports to China.
Could one of the unintended consequences of this be the end of globalisation?
We need to distinguish between globalisation slowing down or even reversing a bit, and deglobalisation. More tensions and even conflicts might arise within globalisation, and this could lead to some backsliding. But globalisation is now so materially rooted that it is not going to end on its own. It might change — and it is worth thinking about how apparently small changes might affect some of the specifics of globalisation — but globalisation itself, as a world structured economically around global corporations and supply chains, is not ending.
For example, much is made of China now exporting less to the United States because of the Trump-Biden tariffs. But its exports are still higher than they were a decade ago when the world was considered highly globalised. And, in any case, other Asian countries are picking up some of the markets China lost, while US corporations are increasing imports from Mexico.
Still, the United States is not omnipotent. It faces legitimacy problems at home and — through a combination of arrogance, paranoia and incompetence — unintended consequences abroad with their own dynamics and threats to the empire. The rejection of a peace agreement in Ukraine in the name of weakening Russia has resulted in a strengthening of Russia and its standing, a horrific catastrophe for Ukraine, and a further loss of US legitimacy in the Global South. Pressures on China have primarily led China to escalate its high-tech development and military preparedness. And the nationalist turn in the United States, even when it is performative, complicates the managing of the empire.
Given all this, what should 21st-century socialist anti-imperialism or internationalism look like?
I would emphasise three points.
First, it is a mistake to think that inter-imperial rivalry is going to do the heavy lifting for the left in ending capitalism. The task is rather to build the social forces able to take this on. Moreover, if inter-imperial rivalry were to emerge, given the weakness of the left, it would most likely come with extreme nationalism and make left organising even more difficult.
Second, internationalism begins at home. If we cannot take over and transform our own state, we can neither help ourselves or help struggles abroad (for example by transferring technology to the Global South, addressing the environment in the context of global inequalities, limiting intervention in their societies by our own states, etc). When we struggle at home (instead of making concessions), we create more space for struggles abroad. As The Communist Manifesto put it, the class struggle is always international in substance, but against our own bourgeoisies and states in form.
Third, for all its populism and current confidence, the right will not challenge corporations or capitalism and therefore will not really take on the fight against imperialism. If we understand imperialism today as the US-led drive to universalise capitalism, then fighting imperialism means replacing it with its opposite: the universalisation — starting at home but with an internationalist sensibility — of socialism.
Sam Gindin is a former research director for the Canadian Auto Workers union and Packer Visiting Chair in Social Justice at York University. He is also the coauthor of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy Of American Empire (with Leo Panitch), In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives (with Greg Albo and Panitch), and The Socialist Challenge Today (with Panitch and Stephen Maher), among other works. In this extensive interview with Federico Fuentes for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal Gindin discusses the rise of the US empire, its role in creating a truly global capitalism and the challenges it faces today.
Sam Gindin
Sam Gindin spent most of his working life (1974-2000) as the research director of and then Assistant to the President of the Canadian Auto Workers. He then led a seminar on Social Justice and Political activism at York (which was also open to community activists). He is currently writing a book with Leo Panitch on the making of global capitalism and active in community-labour education and organizing through the Socialist Project (a group desperately trying to keep socialist ideas alive).
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