Theories of Imperialism Revisited

Panagiotis Sotiris

During the 1990’s ‘globalization’ emerged as the most convenient concept to

describe world affairs. However, during the 2000s imperialism made an

impressive come-back in political and theoretical debates. David Harvey’s New

Imperialism, (Harvey 2003), Ellen Meksins Wood’s Empire of Capital (Wood

2003) or Alex Callinicos’ The New Mandarins of American Power (Callinicos

2003), on the Marxist side. The notions of empire and imperialism became

pertinent again in mainstream discussions of international relations and

conflicts, exemplified in calls for a liberal imperialism to deal with terrorism and

rogue states (Cooper 2002) and for the need for the US to act as a benevolent

imperial hegemon (Kagan 1998) to safeguard Western values and liberties. This

mostly had to do with the emergence of an aggressive American military

interventionism, beginning with the war in Afghanistan, the brutal occupation of

Iraq, the plans for a military strike against Iran.

However, regarding the Marxist Theory of Imperialism, there are indeed some

open questions. Is a theory of imperialism simply a combination of Marxist

political economy and Realism? Is it a theory of territorial expansion? Is it a

theory of a unified global system Is it a theory of Empire?

Alex Callinicos has insisted on the need to incorporate the state system and the

conflicts and antagonisms at that level as “a dimension of the capitalist mode of

production” (Callinicos 2009, 83) leading to the combination of two forms of

competition, one among capitals and a geopolitical competition between states

(Callinicos 2005; 2007; 2009). Gonzalo Pozo-Martin (2007) has shown that this

‘realist’ or geopolitical moment needs much more theoretical elaboration, if we

want to avoid the theoretical shortcomings of traditional realist

conceptualizations of international relations. Peter Gowan’s (1999) attempted

towards a Marxist geopolitics of American dominance, notwithstanding the

accuracy of many of his conclusions and despite his insistence that American

foreign policy is based on the promotion of American capitalist interests as

national interest.

However, Realism cannot account for the complexity of the international system.

Realism has been the defining theoretical tradition in mainstream International

Relations theory (Carr 1939, Wight 1994, Waltz 1979, Frankel (ed.) 1996. For a

criticism of traditional International Relations Theory see Rosenberg 1994).

While realism is seen as having merit when contrasted with the idealist rhetoric

of most of current globalization or cosmopolitan democracy theories, the

simplistic Hobbesian conceptions of political power and Great Power rivalry that

are the backbone of realist theories of International Relations do not offer a

possible way to theorize the complexity of determinations within the

international plane and the interrelation between economic, political and

ideological antagonisms. Moreover, it remains a theoretical paradigm that leads

to a rather schematic territorial conception of the stakes in international conflicts

and antagonisms.

However, of the problems in contemporary Marxist theory of imperialism is the

persistence of the territorial logic. On example has been David Harvey’s theory of

accumulation as dispossession. (Harvey 2003). For Harvey, capitalism not only

induces a logic of endless flows of capital but also brings forward the particular

importance of spatio-temporal fixes in a social process of production of space

that leads to the historical geography of imperialism. This is also the basis of a

certain territorial logic that grounds the tendency towards imperialism under

capitalism. Here accumulation by discpossession acquires importance, especially

in a period of capitalist overaccumulation, in the sense of a predatory imperialist

quest for assets all over the world, enhanced by both financialization and

privatization.

Harvey links this to both Luxembourg’s theory of imperialism and to Marx’s

theory of primitive accumulation. However, he insists that it is not limited to a

particular historical period

The disadvantage of these assumptions is that they relegate accumulation

based upon predation, fraud, and violence to an 'original stage' that is

considered no longer relevant or, as with Luxemburg, as being somehow

'outside of capitalism as a closed system. A general reevaluation of the

continuous role and persistence of the predatory practices of 'primitive' or

'original' accumulation within the long historical geography of capital

 accumulation is, therefore, very much in order, as several commentators

have recently observed. Since it seems peculiar to call an ongoing process

'primitive' or 'original' I shall, in what follows, substitute these terms by the

concept of'accumulation by dispossession'. (Harvey 2003, p. 144)

For Harvey accumulation by dispossession leads to neoliberalism

Accumulation by dispossession became increasingly more salient after 1973,

in part as compensation for the chronic problems of overaccumulation

arising within expanded reproduction. The primary vehicle for this

development was financialization and the orchestration, largely at the

behest of the United States, of an international financial system that could,

from time to time, visit anything from mild to savage bouts of devaluation

and accumulation by dispossession on certain sectors or even whole

territories. But the opening up of new territories to capitalist development

and to capitalistic forms of market behaviour also played a role, as did the

primitive accumulations accomplished in those countries (such as South

Korea, Taiwan, and now, even more dramatically, China) that sought to

insert themselves into global capitalism as active players. For all of this to

occur required not only financialization and freer trade, but a radically

different approach to how state power, always a major player in

accumulation by dispossession, should be deployed. The rise of neo-liberal

theory and its associated politics of privatization symbolized much of what

this shift was about. (Harvey 2003, p. 156)

It also leads to the contemporary version of imperialism

The rise in importance of accumulation by dispossession as an answer,

symbolized by the rise of an internationalist politics of neoliberalism and

privatization, correlates with the visitation. Accumulation by Dispossession

of periodic bouts of predatory devaluation of assets in one part of the world

or another. And this seems to be the heart of what contemporary imperialist

practice is about. (Harvey 2003, pp. 181-82)

In this context it is really interesting to go back to the Rosa Luxemburg in order

to see the origins of the territorial logic regarding imperialism along with a

conception of imperialism as inherently prone to crisis.

Imperialism is the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its

competitive struggle for what remains still open of the noncapitalist

environment. Still the largest part of the world in terms of geography, this

remaining field for the expansion of capital is yet insignificant as against the

high level of development already attained by the productive forces of capital;

witness the immense masses of capital accumulated in the old countries which

seek an outlet for their surplus product and strive to capitalise their surplus

value, and the rapid change-over to capitalism of the pre-capitalist civilisations.

On the international stage, then, capital must take appropriate measures. With

the high development of the capitalist countries and their increasingly severe

competition in acquiring non-capitalist areas, imperialism grows in lawlessness

and violence, both in aggression against the non-capitalist world and in ever
 more serious conflicts among the competing capitalist countries. But the more

violently, ruthlessly and thoroughly imperialism brings about the decline of

non-capitalist civilisations, the more rapidly it cuts the very ground from under

the feet of capitalist accumulation. Though imperialism is the historical method

for prolonging the career of capitalism, it is also a sure means of bringing it to a

swift conclusion. This is not to say that capitalist development must be actually

driven to this extreme: the mere tendency towards imperialism of itself takes

forms which make the final phase of capitalism a period of catastrophe.

(Luxemburg 2003, pp. 426-7)

And again here is Luxemburg on the relation between imperialism and war

The other aspect of the accumulation of capital concerns the relations

between capitalism and the non-capitalist modes of production which start

making their appearance on the international stage. Its predominant

methods are colonial policy, an international loan system—a policy of

spheres of interest—and war. Force, fraud, oppression, looting are openly

displayed without any attempt at concealment, and it requires an effort to

discover within this tangle of political violence and contests of power the

stern laws of the economic process. (Luxembourg 2003, p. 432)

What is also important in Luxemburg’s conception is a certain teleology of

capitalism’s inevitable collapse.

 the deep and fundamental antagonism between the capacity to consume and

the capacity to produce in a capitalist society, a conflict resulting from the very

accumulation of capital which periodically bursts out in crises and spurs capital

on to a continual of the market. (Luxemburg 2003, p. 327)

Such a position leads to the assumption that capitalism will collapse the moment

capitalist social relations prevail all over the world. And it is here where we can

find the relation between capitalism, crisis and territorial expansion. In the 1915

Anti-critique Rosa Luxemburg described in the following manner capital’s

tendency towards expansion:

Accumulation is impossible in an exclusively capitalist environment. Therefore,

we find that capital has been driven since its very inception to expand into

non..capitalist strata and nations, ruin artisans and peasantry, proletarianize

the intermediate strata, the politics of colonialism, the politics of' opening-up'

andthe export of capital. The development of capitalism has been possible only

through constant expansion into new domains of production and new countries.

But the global drive to expand leads to a collision between capital and pre-

capitalist forms of society, resulting in violence, war, revol ution: in brief,

catastrophes from start to finish, the vital element of capitalism. (Luxemburg /

Bukharin 1972, p. 145)

One early critic of the territorial logic was Bukharin. In his reply to

Luxembourg Bukharin followed a twofold strategy: On the one hand he

deconstructed the core of Luxembourg’s argument insisting that expanded

reproduction of capitalism is contingent upon the dynamics of class struggle

and it is wrong to assume an absolute limit, as Luxembourg did.

In other words: a conflict between production and consumption, or,

which amounts to the same thing, a general over-production, is nothing

other than a crisis. This position is basically different from that held by

Rosa Luxemburg, according to which over-production must manifest

itself at all times in a purely capitalist society, since an expanded

reproduction is absolutely) impossible. (Luxemburg / Bukharin 1972, p.

225)

On the other hand, Bukharin insisted that the motive for capitalist expansion

is not realization of value, but the search for profit. This insistence on

capitalist profit is an important break with the logic of territorial expansion

either as need for the extraction of assets or as need for finding new outlets

for inherent capitalist over-production. According to Bukharin the driving

force behind capital exports is not the problem of realization (the basis of

under-consumption theories) but the search for higher profit rates and this

can explain why imperialist policies are not directed solely against the non-

capitalist periphery but also against the capitalist centre and he cites the

French occupation of Ruhr as an example.

The reader will have noticed how strangely Rosa Luxemburg formulates

the question of the economic roots of capital expansion. As she overlooks

the factor of the search for larger profits, she reduces everything to the
 bare formula of the possibility of realization. Why does capital need a

non-capitalist milieu? (Luxembourg / Bukharin 1972, p. 246)

The expansion of capital is conditioned by the movement of profit, its

amount and rate, on which the amount depends. The movement of

commodities and capital follows the law of the averaging out of the rate

of profit. There is no doubt that this process must be seen from the

standpoint of the reproduction of the total social capital. (Luxembourg /

Bukharin 1972, p. 255)

Consequently, he offers a novel way to treat imperialism as an expression of

capital expansion.

Accordingly, the objective content of capital expansion changes also - within

certain limits. We saw that the forms of expansion changed towards a

sharpening of the methods of fighting. Further we have seen that this again is

caused by a change of the forms of capital itself. As war is nothing but 'the

continuation of politics with other means', so is politics nothing but the method

of the reproduction of certain conditions of production. So the modem

expansion of capital differs from the previous in the fact that it reproduces the

new historical type of the conditions of production on an extended level, i.e. the

type of the conditions of finance capitalism. In this rests the basic constitutive

characteristic of imperialism, which Rosa Luxemburg completely overlooked.

What is the point of all this talk about imperialism, if one does not understand

its specific historical characteristics? It means a misunderstanding of the

 demands of Marxist methodology as well as of the 'concrete historical process',

which is so often called as a witness against the 'soulless formulae' in Marx's

Capital. (Luxemburg / Bukharin 1971, p. 257)

There are two possible readings of Lenin’s theory of Imperialism. One is to

consider it a Marxist version of classical theories of colonial empire-building,

either those that related imperialism to an overabundance of capital in tandem

with growing social instability, or those that considered imperialism an

expression of certain fractions of the ruling block that had to gain from overseas

expansion and military build up (Hobson 1902). According to this view, Lenin

presents a theory of irremediable capitalist stagnation and overproduction which

can only be temporarily dealt with by colonization, the latter providing the

necessary outlet for idle capital and a means of social pacification, through the

creation of a labour aristocracy. This is a wrong reading

This does not deny that there are indeed problems with Lenin’s theory of

Imperialism. Lenin’s endorsement of Bukharin’s book on world capitalism.

Bukharin, although not a theorist of a global unified capitalist system in the strict

sense, tended to present an image of a global capitalism as an integral system in

which the antagonistic relations between big capitalist trusts represented by

states, thus underestimating specificity of the role of the state. This is evident in

texts like the following.

At present, when the competition and the centralisation of capital are being

reproduced on a world scale, we find the same two types. When one country,
 one state capitalist trust, absorbs another, a weaker one possessed of

comparatively the same economic structure, we have a horizontal

centralisation of capital. Where, however, the state capitalist trust includes

an economically supplementary unit, an agrarian country for instance, we

have the formation of a combine. Substantially the same contradictions and

the same moving forces are reflected here as within the limits of "national

economies"; to be specific, the rise of prices of raw materials leads to the rise

of combined enterprises. Thus on the higher stage of the struggle there is

reproduced the same contradiction between the various branches, but on a

considerably wider scale. (Bukharin n.d., pp. 120-21)

Moreover, Lenin’s emphasis on the formation of monopolies as a distinctive

feature of the imperialist stage sometimes underestimated competition between

capitals.

But this is not the case. Not in every branch of industry are there large-scale

enterprises; and moreover, a very important feature of capitalism in its

highest stage of development is so-called combination of production, that is

to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry

(Lenin v. 22, 198)

There is also Lenin’s tendency towards an instrumentalist theory of the state as a

tool in the hands of monopoly capital and big trusts. There is also the problem

with his definition of imperialism (and monopoly capital) as inherently parasitic

and crisis-prone.
 From all that has been said in this book on the economic essence of

imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or,

more precisely, as moribund capitalism. (Lenin, v.22, p. 302)

Also problematic is Lenin’s agreement with Hilferding’s original position that the

export of capital towards the periphery was the result of limits to capital

accumulation in the imperialist centre and with Hilferding’s conception of the

predominance of monopolies and cartels (Hilferding 1981).

However, there is also the possibility of another reading of Lenin. In this reading,

Lenin’s theory of imperialism revolutionizes the theory of the international

system, giving imperialism a wholly different meaning than simple empire

building. Lenin tried to think of the international system as a complex unity of

economic, social and political contradictions, as a hierarchy of social formations,

engaged not only in economic competition, but also in political and military

antagonism.

Of particular importance is Lenin’s conception of unequal development. ‘Uneven

economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.’ (Lenin, v.21,

p. 342). Uneven development is not just a description of the world system. It is an

acknowledgement of the constant and overdetermined efficacy of class struggles.

Global tendencies, both economic and ‘geopolitical, are uneven because class

struggles and their dynamics are uneven. In this his description of the

antagonisms in the world scene in the introductory speech at the Second

Congress of the Communist International (Lenin, v. 31), is of great theoretical

importance

Uneven development is not simply about the non-linear character of

development in the international system. It is a more general statement on the

complexity of social and political antagonism, on the singularity of each

particular historical conjuncture, on the uneven an even decentred character of

the condensation of contradictions at a given social formation, in a particular

moment of its development and its relation to the international system. The

following two extracts from Lenin highlight this:

That the revolution succeeded so quickly and—seemingly, at the first superficial

glance—so radically, is only due to the fact that, as a result of an extremely

unique historical situation, absolutely dissimilar currents, absolutely

heterogeneous class interests, absolutely contrary political and social strivings

have merged, and in a strikingly “harmonious” manner. (Lenin vol. 23, p. 302)

As long as national and state distinctions exist among peoples and countries—

and these will continue to exist for a very long time to come, even after the

dictatorship of the proletariat has been established on a world-wide scale—the

unity of the international tactics of the communist working-class movement in

all countries demands, not the elimination of variety of the suppression of

national distinctions (which is a pipe dream at present), but an application of

the fundamental principles of communism (Soviet power and the dictatorship

of the proletariat), which will correctly modify these principles in certain

 particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-state

distinctions. (Lenin vol. 31, p. 92)

Uneven development is not merely about quantitative differences between social

formations but describes the necessarily singular and overdetermined character

of both. In the international plane, uneven development is the necessary outcome

of the complex history of the emergence and domination of capitalism in

different parts of the world. It refers to the consequent creation of antagonistic

total social capitals, and the fragmentation into different and mostly national

polities. In this process, different class histories led to different balances of forces

between dominant and subaltern classes (but also among power blocs), and

consequently different paths for state formation, and also domestic and

international strategies. Uneven development, and the different strategies for

capital accumulation, not only in terms of international market antagonism but

also in terms of states promoting the interests of antagonistic total social capitals

and bourgeoisies, create the material conditions for conflict. It is exactly this

articulation of the economic and the political, itself uneven, contradictory and

contingent on the dynamics of the conjuncture, that leads to inter-imperialist

rivalry and war

One might say that of the important theoretical advances of Lenin’s theory of

Imperialism, is exactly its conception of the specificity of capitalist imperialism.

The emphasis on class relations and antagonisms marks a sharp difference

between Lenin’s theory of imperialism and proponents of American

expansionism in the form of ‘economic imperialism’ as a solution for the over-

abundance of capital, such as Charles Conant (1898). Lenin’s intervention goes

far beyond a theory of idle capitals, the difficulty of wealth redistribution and the

unavailability of domestic productive outlets. The fundamental issue for Lenin

was not capital exports as such, but capital exports as part of a broader tendency:

the expansion of capitalist social relations on a global scale, the political and

military antagonisms that followed this expansion, the violent character of this

process, and the resulting challenges for the revolutionary movement. Beginning

with his early work on the development of capitalism in Russia (Lenin, v. 3) Lenin

insisted on capitalism transforming all social forms it gets into contact with.

Although Lenin lacked a theory of the articulation of modes of production that

could help explain the symbiotic relation of capitalism with many non-capitalist

modes of exploitation, we think that he managed to grasp the particular way

capitalism may emerge within specific conjunctures not simply as a dominant

mode of production, but as the central node around which other modes and

forms of production can be articulated. Such a conception of capitalist

imperialism can explain why especially during colonial expansion forms of

capitalist and non-capitalist exploitation could co-exist, co-emerge and even co-

develop. David Ruccio has stressed exactly this point:

Imperialism, in turn, is the set of conditions that shape and are shaped by

the existence of this exploitation. Yes capitalist imperialism – not because

capitalists get what they want, nor because forms of colonial expansion and

domination did not predate the emergence and development of capitalism,

nor finally because imperialism can be reduced to or explained entirely in

terms of the economy (capitalist or otherwise) – but because the particular

 forms of imperialism I am referring to, from the British annexation of India

to the US military barrage on Iraqi forces and the new ‘war on terrorism’

cannot be divorced from those (complex, changing) conditions and effects of

capitalism to which I just referred. (Ruccio 2003, 87).

In this sense, we can say that Lenin revolutionized the theorization of the

international system by giving internal class relations and contradictions

analytical priority over interstate relations. Contrary to most theories of

international relations, both realist and ‘idealist’, which have their origins in

classical political philosophy and 19 th century diplomatic history and tend to

view states as subjects that act out of their own will, Lenin insisted that the

policies of states are governed by their internal class balance of forces, the degree

of capitalist development and the particular class strategies around it.

Lenin’s emphasis on capital exports – not simply as productive investments

abroad but as the expansion of capitalist social relations – as the predominant

form of the internationalization of capital, and on the internationalization of

capital as the material basis of imperialism also had revolutionizing effects.

Contrary to the traditional conception of international power politics as

expressions of conflicting national interests, Lenin insisted on the

internationalization of capital as a contradictory expansion of capitalist social

relations resulting to singular articulations of capitalist and non capitalist modes

and forms of production, but with capitalist social forms being dominant not

necessarily quantitatively but surely qualitatively in the sense of inducing the

transformation of all social relations and practices. International conflicts must

be viewed as class antagonisms mediated by the nation-states as expressions of

the long-term interest of the power blocs in these states, namely alliances of the

dominant classes, in which capitalist classes play a leading role. This is evident in

the following two passages from Lenin.

Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway,

was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when

monopolies rule, is the export of capital. (Lenin, v. 22, p. 240)

The export of capital influences and greatly accelerates the development of

capitalism in those countries to which it is exported. While, therefore, the

export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in the

capital exporting countries, it can only do so by expanding and deepening

the further development of capitalism throughout the world. (Lenin, v.22, p.

243

We can say that Lenin’s emphasis on the internationalization of capital through

capital exports dealt a decisive blow to the notion of imperialism as simply

territorial expansion. Despite Lenin’s many references to the ‘division of the

world among the Great Powers’, the core of his argument regarding capital

exports is that the expansion of capital no longer requires territorial annexation

or formal empire, but the articulation of capital accumulation and political power.

Moreover, his insistence on antagonism and conflict and on the particular, non-

uniform and related to a given conjuncture dynamics of interimperialist rivalry

prevent his position from falling into the teleology of a uniform transition and

development.

We can also say that in Lenin we have a political theory of imperialism. Lenin’s

emphasis on the role of states in imperialist dynamics and rivalries and on the

necessity of the state apparatuses for the expression and mediation of capitalist

interests in the international system, leads also to a political theory of

imperialism. Imperialism presupposes political power as a condensation of class

interests and inter-imperialist rivalries are political rivalries, struggles between

different power blocks, including struggles between alliances of states,

something that can also account for the importance of international

organizations. This emphasis on the relative autonomy of the political protects

Lenin’s argument from economistic reductionism and keeps capital accumulation

and capitalist class interests as the necessary material ground of the whole

process. That is why Lenin proposed a possible explanation for World War I as

the culmination of rival strategies for leadership and dominance in the

imperialist system. It can also explain the possibility that the international is also

the plane where internal contradictions and political strategies are being played

out, from the many examples of aggressive military campaigns to galvanize

domestic consent in nationalist lines, to the current use of international

economic organizations such as the IMF to promote political agendas that were

initially domestically articulated.

In its turn, this political conception of imperialism is also based upon the

theoretical revolution Marxism brings regarding the theory of the political. n

contrast to the tautologies used in traditional political science, in which political

power is just taken as given, Marxism offers a definition of power as the “capacity

of a social class to realize its specific objective interests” (Poulantzas 1978, 104).

This priority of exploitation over domination offers an explanation of power as

class power, ability of social groups to control the extraction and distribution of

surplus labour because of their specific objective structural class position. It

offers a possible explanation of the class character of power relations and

struggles and therefore also of state apparatuses. The key point, in our opinion, is

to stress at the same time the analytical priority of exploitation over repression

and domination, and the importance of the fact that political practice has as its

object the condensation of all the contradictions of the various levels of a social

formation (Poulantzas 1978, 41). This notion of the political escapes the

shortcomings of both the mainstream political science’s notion of political power

as administrative command, and of the portrayal of political power as direct

control of the state by capitalist factions that characterizes many varieties of

economistic Marxism. In this non-economistic reading of Marxism, the insistence

on the class character of political power is combined with the position that class

strategies are also necessarily political strategies, strategies aimed at

reproducing or destabilizing social formations as complex and contradictory

unities of economic, political, ideological relations and practises. This is a

dialectical conception of politics that allows us to accept both Marx’s insistence

that the “specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out

of direct producers” is the “innermost secret” of every social structure (Marx

1894, 778) and Althusser’s warning that although the economic relations are

determinant in the last instance, the “lonely hour of the ‘last instance’ never
comes” (Althusser 1969, 113). It is a conception of political power that manages

to maintain the link between politics and the economy and at the same time

ground the necessary relative autonomy of the political. It was Marx that in a

certain way expressed exactly this dialectical approach:

The complexity of Lenin’s theory of imperialism is also evident in his theory of

the imperialist chain. The emergence of the concept of the imperialist chain as

the suitable description of the hierarchal, uneven and contradictory character of

the international system, and of the combination of hierarchy and

interdependence in the international plane and the concept of weakest link as an

attempt to describe the potential condensation of contradictions in a specific

social formation, are also important. Class struggle within each social formation

determines its position in the hierarchy of the imperialist chain. The form of

social alliances, the stage of capitalist development, the level of capitalist

productivity, its military and political force, as well as its ideological influence,

can reinforce or undermine the relative international power of a capitalist social

formation. A social formation’s position in the imperialist chain is not based only

on its level of economic development but also on the entirety of its political and

military power. This is evident in Lenin’s theorization of antagonism in the

imperialist chain:

the fact that the world is already partitioned obliges those contemplating a

redivision to reach out for every kind of territory, and (2) an essential

feature of imperialism is the rivalry between several great powers in the

striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly
 for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony.

(Lenin, v.22, 269)

Nicos Poulantzas has stressed the importance of this conception of the

antagonism in the imperialist chain

The new index of the power of politics which characterizes monopoly

capitalism within each national formation is translated into the new index

of the power of politics which marks international relations in the

imperialist stage. […] The concrete form and the degreee of the strength of

politics within each national formation, depend on its ‘historical position as

a link in the chain: this depends in turn on the uneven development of the

chain and on its mode of existence within each link (Poulantzas 1979 p. 24)

The theory of the imperialist chain along with the imagery of the weakest link in

the chain remain important for any thinking of revolutionary politics. It describes

the complex articulation of national and international determinations and the

overdetermination of class antagonism. It offers the possibility of a theory of the

revolutionary conjuncture, a theory the ‘moment’(and not of the ‘event’), a theory

of the singularity of social and political determination of each particular

historical period. This how Louis Althusser stressed exactly this point:

But here we should pay careful attention: if it is obvious that the theory of

the weakest link guided Lenin in his theory of the revolutionary party (it

was to be faultlessly united in consciousness and organization to avoid

 adverse exposure and to destroy the enemy), it was also the inspiration for

his reflections on the revolution itself. How was this revolution possible in

Russia, why was it victorious there? It was possible in Russia for a reason

that went beyond Russia: because with the unleashing of imperialist war

humanity entered into an objectively revolutionary situation.Imperialism

tore off the 'peaceful' mask of the old capitalism. The concentration of

industrial monopolies, their subordination to financial monopolies, had

increased the exploitation of the workers and of the colonies. Competition

between the monopolies made war inevitable. But this same war, which

dragged vast masses, even colonial peoples from whom troops were drawn,

into limitless suffering, drove its cannon-fodder not only into massacres, but

also into history. Everywhere the experience, the horrors of war, were a

revelation and confirmation of a whole century's protest against capitalist

exploitation; a focusing-point, too, for hand in hand with this shattering

exposure went the effective means of action. […] Why this paradoxical

exception? For this basic reason: in the 'system of imperialist

states'[8] Russia represented the weakest point. The Great War had, of

course, precipitated and aggravated this weakness, but it had not by itself

created it. Already, even in defeat, the 1905 Revolution had demonstrated

and measured the weakness of Tsarist Russia. This weakness was the

product of this special feature: the accumulation and exacerbation of all the

historical contradictions. (Althusser 1969, pp. 95-96)

However, if we want to elaborate on a potential Marxist theory of imperialism,

the theoretical contribution of Gramsci must also be included, particularly the

theoretically fruitful Gramscian concept of Hegemony (Gramsci 1971; Buci-

Glucksmann 1980; Bootham 2008; Thomas 2009). It does not simply imply the

combination of coercion and consent. Rather, it refers to the complex modalities

of social and political power in capitalist societies that make a social class

become the leading social force in a society. Moreover, the concepts of hegemony

and hegemonic apparatus, as part of Gramsci’s theorization of the Integral State

(Gramsci 1971, 239; Thomas 2009, 137-141) also offer a way to theorize the

extent and complexity of State apparatuses and their economic, political, and

ideological practices and interventions. Along with Althusser’s conception of the

Ideological State Apparatuses (Althusser 1971; Althusser 1995) and their role in

social reproduction and Poulantzas’ relational conception of the State as a

condensation of social forces (Poulantzas 1980), this theoretical direction

maintains the relation between State functioning and social class formations,

brings forward the role of the State in the elaboration of class strategies and the

transformation of class interests into political projects, and stresses how the

State is being traversed and conditioned by class struggles and antagonisms.

On the basis of the above theoretical elaboration, it is obvious that a Marxist

theory of Imperialism is beyond a more critical version of geopolitics theory. We

cannot take states as self-sufficient actors in shaping the international plane, but

we must look at the different class alliances and power blocs and how these

affect the formation of capitalist class strategy, state policy and consequently

international policy. This is in sharp contrast to traditional ‘realist’ geopolitical

theory with its emphasis on States as self-sufficient actors in the international

system. States’ behaviour in the international plane is itself conditioned by the

articulation of class contradictions and political strategies and the emergence of

hegemonic power blocs. Interstate relations can be viewed as class based

relations, as relations (and conflicts) between different power blocs. The current

return of ‘geopolitics’ is a welcome refusal of the economistic idealism of the

‘globalization’ rhetoric. However, it poses the danger of a return to a pre-Marxist

conception of political power. Of course, if ‘geopolitics’ is a metonymic reference

to the State’s relative autonomy vis-aà -vis the economy or the relative autonomy

of the political in general, then we do not disagree in principle, but we still insist

on a terminology that underlines the conceptual break between Marxist and non-

Marxist theories of Imperialism.

We must treat Imperialism as class political strategy in an inherently antagonistic

international plane, where the antagonism between capitals is also mediated

through the antagonism of power blocs and where States as potential

representatives of collective capitalist interests constantly intervene, by

economic, ideological, political and military means, in order not simply to

promote specific capitalist interests but also the more general conditions for

capitalist accumulation through strategies that are also over-determined by

political and ideological considerations having to do with their specific class

balance of forces and the articulation of modes and forms of production. This is

the problem with the territorial or geopolitical logic expressed in many recent

interventions. It is not that capitalists and capitalist states do not preoccupy

themselves with territorial or spatial questions (for example natural resources)

or with geopolitical questions (for example regional military balance of forces),

but that this is not the basic ‘logic’ of capitalist imperialism. But to substantiate
this position and to distance it from a teleological or deterministic conception we

will proceed, in the next section, to an alternative theorization of capitalist

imperialism.

It is exactly here that we find the non-territorial character of the specifically

capitalist form of imperialism. Direct territorial domination and expansion is a

characteristic, in particular in Europe, of pre-capitalist modes of production

where direct access and possession of land and scarce resources and the ability

to exercise direct physical force on populations in order to extract surpluses

(‘extra-economic’ coercion) were structural aspects of social reproduction. The

emergence of capitalism as a dominant mode of production, and of an

international system based on territorially sovereign nation-states, the evolution

of social and political struggles, and the growing importance of productivity,

technological change, and real subsumption of labour, meant that territorial gains

of colonial dominions were no longer essential conditions for the reproduction of

the system. On the contrary what emerges as the main aspect of modern

capitalist imperialism is the internationalization of capital. By

internationalization we refer to all forms of product and capital exports, of

capital movements, of trade and financial transactions, of global relocation of

production, of lowering of barriers to trade and investment, of international

agreements, policy initiatives and organizations facilitating theses procedures,

including forms of international coordination and even creation of forms of

supranational integration such as the EU. The internationalization of capital is

indeed inducing the expansion of specifically capitalist social relations of

production, in articulation with non-capitalist modes and forms of production in

complex processes of reproduction and transformation.

This can account for the political dimension in capitalist imperialism. The

tendency of capital to transcend national borders and search all over the world

for better profitability is not an unmediated purely economic process. If political

power and bourgeois hegemony are necessary conditions for the reproduction of

capitalist social relations, the same goes for the internationalization of capital:

some form of political intervention (and ideological legitimization) is necessary

for it. This is a structural necessity; the specific form of this political and

ideological guarantee is subject to historical contingencies. This can explain the

move from imperialism in the form of rival colonial empires to the more ‘modern’

imperialism of a hierarchy of imperialist formations, with the US in the

hegemonic role of politically and militarily guaranteeing the global collective

capitalist interest.

Competition between capitals is an “organic” aspect of capitalism, in the sense

that it is inscribed in the very structure of the capitalist market. However,

competition between different capitals in the international plane takes the form

not only of competition between different national capitals but also to

competition and antagonism between different states representing different

collective capitalist interests. That is why the notion of the imperialist chain is

still an accurate description of the uneven and complex relations of

interdependence between different social formations and power blocks. When

we talk about political intervention as a prerequisite for the internationalization

of capital we do not refer only to ‘classical’ forms of military intervention or

‘gunboat diplomacy’. For example, the formation of the current international

financial architecture was not just a spontaneous process and same goes for the

lowering of barriers to the free flow of products and capital and the political

decision to expose capitalist social formations to the competitive pressure of

world markets and capital movements. Etienne Balibar suggested that Marx

performs a theoretical short circuit between economics and politics, by

grounding the political in class strategies within production and at the same time

treating the economical as a terrain of conflicting political class strategies

(Balibar 1994). A theory of imperialism must perform the same theoretical short

circuit.

In this light, we must tackle the question of the causes of war. If one sees war,

especially imperialist war, as a form of territorial expansion, then the evolution of

capitalism and the importance of capital exports make this sort of expansion

(and any military preparation for it) unnecessary. But one should not forget that

two World Wars were mainly not the outcome of territorial disputes. It is true

that the question of the dissolution of Empires acted as a catalyst for WWI, and

one should not underestimate the initial importance of Nazi Germany’s claim

over all of the territories with German-speaking minorities in the outbreak of

WWII. But it is also obvious that in both World Wars the scale of the mobilization

and the extent of the conflict were beyond simple territorial claims. It was a fight

for leadership and hegemony in the capitalist world. These wars were mainly

forms of escalating political antagonism, due to condensed contradictions

concerning the hegemonic position in the imperialist chain. If one sees war as an
extreme case of political confrontation, then we can insist on the position that

antagonism remains the structural aspect of interstate relations. Whether this

antagonism takes the form of military confrontation or remains in political terms

(namely within the limits of current international law and custom) depends on

the conjuncture, on the scale of the interests and strategies at stake, on the

balance of forces both regionally and globally, on the domestic social and political

configuration and whether war effort will galvanize or destabilize hegemony.

What about theories that suggest that we have moved beyond the era of the

nation-state and of the imperialist chain as a chain of national social formations?

Is there any basis in theories of globalization? Most ‘globalization’ theories are

either simple descriptions of tendencies and o observable phenomena, lacking

theoretical rigour. Other theories, such as the one presented in Empire (Hardt –

Negri 2000) are simple metaphorical rewritings of traditional global capitalism

theories. Hardt and Negri in Empire (2000) in fact, despite the references to

biopolitics etc, in fact return to a very classical conception of a global capitalism

system, in certain aspects reminiscent of Luxembourg’s positions. Their

reference to Empire has the extra problem of confusing the capitalist and pre-

capitalist conception of empire. Consequently, it is more a radical theory of

globalization rather than a Marxist theory of imperialism

The most interesting theories are the one suggesting that we are dealing with

transnational capitals, transnational social formations and transnational political

forms, such as the theory presented by William I. Robinson. According to this

theory,
 ‘globalization is establishing the material conditions for the rise of a

bourgeoisie whose coordinates are no longer national. In this process of

transnational class formation dominant groups fuse into a class (or class

fraction) within transnational space. The organic composition, objective

position and subjective constitution of these groups are no longer tied to

nation-states.’ (Robinson and Harris 2000).

According to Robinson is on the basis of such a conception that we are

witnessing the profound transformation of the nation-state and how it its

subsumed to larger transnational structures.

[T]he national state is being transformed and increasingly absorbed

functionally into a larger transnational institutional structure that involves

complex new relations between national states and supra or transnational

institutions, on the one hand, and diverse class and social forces, on the

other.” (Robinson 2007a, p. 83)

Consequently, new forms of domination of transnational capital emerge.

We are witness to new forms of global capitalist domination, whereby

intervention is intended to create conditions favorable to the penetration of

transnational capital and the renewed integration of the intervened region

into the global system. Robinson 2007b, p. 19)

However, there is a problem with thinking in terms of transnational class

formations.On the one hand the reproduction of the subaltern classes is not

‘transnational’. There is no transnational proletariat, nor can we treat migration

as an expression of some nation-less nomadic ‘multitude’. In contrast, the

working classes are still reproduced at the national level. There are no

transnational bourgeoisies. All ‘transnational’ corporations always rely on the

support of the country of origin. Even the most aggressive attempts towards

‘supra-national’ political arrangements, such as the EU, are not ‘supra-states’

despite the ceding of aspects of sovereignty.

It is here that another question emerges. How are we to theorize hierarchy in the

imperialist chain. Can the role of the US be described as simply world dominance

or power supremacy, through the use of force and the ability to guaranty trade

and capital flows and have access to contested territories and scarce resources?

Such a view regresses to a more traditionally Realist view of international

relations and a more territorial logic of interstate relations. Moreover, the

Hobbesian view of power antagonism between self-sufficient and ‘selfish’ agents

that characterizes Realism is inadequate to theorize the complex dialectic of

competition and cooperation, antagonism and interdependence, conflict and

alliance building in the international system. The US has not been simply

imposing its will on unwilling subjects (despite the occasional twist of arms) but

manages (at least up to now) to assume a position of leadership in what is at the

same time a terrain of antagonisms and an imperialist block. What can be

described as the more ‘geopolitical’ moment of current imperialism, namely the

safeguarding of the flow of oil towards the West, cannot be theorized iwn
territorial terms, since the aim of the current American military interventionism

in the Middle East is performed in the name of the collective interest of the

capitalist world to have access to energy resources, and not in the name of direct

American colonization. This notion of hegemony in the imperialist chain should

not be seen as an altruistic attitude. Rather, it refers to those historically specific

conjunctures when fulfilling the prerequisites for the long-term interest of the

ruling bloc of the leading imperialist formation also induces the safeguarding of

certain of the class interests of the ruling classes in the other formations in the

imperialist chain.

Therefore we must think in terms of hegemony in the imperialist chain.

Hegemony presents political power and class domination as the dialectic of

direction, coercion and consent and offers a wider sense of class antagonisms

and political struggles that goes beyond both realist cynicism and idealistic

legalism. Hegemony, in this view, comprises political direction, social class

alliance building, social political and military repression, ideological

misrecognition and material concessions. Hegemony is not simply coercion plus

legitimization, but an attempt to theorize the complexity of class antagonism and

political power, thus offering a better description both of social antagonism and

of the hierarchies arising in the international plane. Moreover, since hegemony

refers to a power relation and consequently entails conflict and antagonism.

If the notion of the imperialist chain is accurate as a description of the

contradictory, hierarchical, uneven and interdependent character of an

international system based upon the enlarged reproduction of capitalist social

relations in nation-states, the notion of hegemony can help explain the

mechanisms of leadership in the imperialist chain. The leading social formation

is not just the more powerful economically or politico-militarily; above all it must

be able to offer plausible strategies for the collective capital interest of the whole

imperialist chain. Hegemony can account for the dialectic between antagonism

and hierarchy better than traditional power-politics approaches that can account

only for contingent balance of force hierarchies, but not for cases of strategic

political and ‘moral’ leadership.

In this sense, inter-imperialist rivalry is in fact a struggle for hegemony. In this

sense current developments are not simply about geopolitics or ‘open markets’

or access to natural resources, however important these aspects are. The

question is what are the hegemonic project arising. The new hegemon for the 21 st

century will not be simply the most powerful military force, but the country that

will articulate the dominant narrative.

It is in light of the above considerations that we must think about American

hegemony. American foreign policy after 1945 aimed not only at guarantying

American supremacy but also at offering elements of a collective strategy for the

whole imperialist chain (rapid industrialization, ‘fordist’ accumulation strategies,

mass consumerism and individualism, a combination between anti-communism

and technocratic ideology). Even the most openly ‘geopolitical’ forms of

American political and military interventions, which can indeed be used as an

illustration of an attempt towards world domination, such as the extended

network of military bases, Air-Force bases and CIA stations, can be best
interpretated by reference to a hegemonic strategy. They are not imperial

outposts, but mainly make manifest to ability of the US to militarily guarantee

capitalist social order all over the world. American political and military

intervention during the past 60 years did not aim solely at guaranteeing

American interests, nor did they aimed at creating colonies, but at safeguarding

the reproduction of capitalist social relations, bourgeois rule and capitalist

accumulation.

This complexity of hegemony in the imperialist chain means that we should

always be very careful when talking about imperial decline. Crisis of hegemony

cannot be a simple factor process. In the 1970s the US suffered actual military

defeats in South-east Asia, capital over-accumulation, fiscal crisis, and the

economic challenge posed by Japan and West Germany. Yet the US not only

managed to retain global leadership but also to eventually offer in the 1980s and

1990s an hegemonic strategy that combined neoliberalism, capitalist

restructuring, the intensification of the internationalization of capital and the

lowering of barriers to the free flow of capitals and products, the incorporation in

the imperialist chain of former socialist formations, the authoritarian backlash

against labour, and a more aggressive form of imperialist interventionism. In this

sense, the current conjuncture of a global capitalist crisis surely poses a test and

challenge for US hegemony but should not be considered as automatically

leading to imperial decline.

American strategy is still a combination between opening up of markets, securing

access to resources (for the entire imperialist chain) and military

interventionism. It also includes the use of what can be described as the

‘management of destabilization’ which also means using situations of crisis

escalation as part of the strategy to pre-empt the emergence of other

antagonistic poles. Ukraine offers an example. At the same time, American

economic policies after 2008 and in particular measure such as ‘quantitative

easing’ are also attempts at guaranteeing the global economy against the crisis

(in contrast to German-inspired austerity that until now has only induced

recessionary tendencies), and in this sense they have also been attempts at

maintaining hegemony. Moreover, the re-establishment of the ‘Euroatlantic’ axis

after 2003 and the TTIP negotiations have also strengthened the American

position. However, there are also open questions regarding whether other poles

of accumulation that have emerged can still recognize themselves within

American Hegemony, or whether they will challenge it. In this sense, it is an open

question whether the increased economic and political role of China (in its

alliance also to a certain extent with Russia) will be transformed into a challenge

of US hegemony. This has not to do only with economic, technological, military

power. Mainly it has to do with the possibility to articulate a different hegemonic

narrative, in all its economic, political and cultural aspects, and in particularly

with the ability to enforce and safeguard it.

At the same time, a non-territorial theory of imperialism can help us understand

the process of EU integration. The EU has been an expression of increased

internationalization of capital. At the same time it has been the most advanced

case of the voluntary ceding of aspects sovereignty (such as currency) and of

imposing forms of supra-national economic governance. This reduced

sovereignty and along with EU institutions’ ‘constitutionalism without popular

sovereignty’ has been a means to aggressively make neoliberalism and capitalist

restructuring irreversible for European social formations. At the same time, the

architecture of the Eurozone has been from the beginning inherently unequal –

expressed in the fact that German growth has been at the expense of European

periphery.

In light of the above, the current crisis in the Eurozone is exactly the result of the

fact that EU is not transforming itself into a supra-state: the inability to counter

regional imbalances, the economic, political and cultural barriers to full labour

and resources mobility, the impossibility of ever becoming an ‘optimum currency

area’, all attest to this fact. It is also evident in the fact that reduced sovereignty

has not been accompanied by redistribution or solidarity. In this sense, the crisis

of the Euro and the acute social and political crisis especially in the European

periphery, are also elements that point towards a certain crisis of Hegemony in

the European Union.

All major aspects of Eurozone and the European Union’s monetary, financial and

institutional architecture, suggest that attempts towards ‘reform from inside’ will

fail. The embedded neoliberalism of European Integration along with its

structural democratic deficit have led to a major legitimacy crisis of the

‘European’ Project. Positions such as the one by Negri and Mezzandra (2014) that

European integration is ‘’well beyond the threshold of irreversibility’ are off the

mark. Moreover, the inability of EU Left to stand up to the challenge has left the

political space open for Far-Right ‘euroscepticism’. Therefore, a strategy of

rupture more necessary than ever. To take Greece as a test case, necessary

measures such as correcting the exchange rate are about protecting Greek society

from the systemic violence inherent in international capital and commodity

flows. Single currencies such as the euro always lead to real wage reductions,

austerity measures, privatisations and constant pressure for neoliberal reforms

in the name of responding to competitive pressures. Exiting such monetary

configurations is not a strategy for ‘isolation’, but a necessary defence against

aggressive capitalist policies. Moreover, it would a mistake to accept, in the name

of ‘internationalism’, the current form of capitalist internationalization of

production, where a product has to travel around the world, go through ‘social

dumping’ areas and ‘special economic zones’ and have a negative environmental

impact, in order to arrive to our market place.

Resistance to imperialism today not simply about ‘independence’ or ‘delinking’

from internationalization of capital. It is also about rethinking the possibility of

working-class hegemony as part of a new historical bloc of the subaltern classes.

This can also imply a different articulation of relations of (counter)hegemony at

the international level: solidarity, struggle, ‘diplomacy of movements’. We

urgently need to reopen the debate!

From the fight against war, military interventionism and the ‘counter-terrorist’

undermining of democratic freedoms to the struggle against the systemic social

violence of the internationalization of capital and austerity, we confront

contemporary imperialism in all its forms. It is imperative that we fight against

imperialism and the capitalist social relations that give rise to it. The fight is far

from over!

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