Chapter 19 : 
The Imperialist Imperative
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People :
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Author : Paul Mattick

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Marx’s model of capital accumulation represents a closed homogenous
system in which the rising organic composition of capital results in a fall of
the rate of profit and therewith in the decline of capital expansion whenever
the conditions of production do not allow for a sufficient rise in the rate of
exploitation. But capitalism is not a closed system: it is able to slacken the
rising organic composition of capital through its outward extension and to
better its rentability through importation of profits from abroad. It is the
value-expansion of the existing centralized capital, however, which determines
the size as well as the character of the world market, and which limits the
capitalization of underdeveloped nations to serve the specific profit needs of
the dominating capitals. Given this world market, it is no longer possible for
the underdeveloped part of the world to further its own capitalization
independently of the profit requirements of the highly-developed capitalist
nations.

The world as a whole is obviously short of capital and surplus-value. The
overproduction of capital relative to its profitability in one part of the
world confronts undercapitalization in another part. Considering capitalism as
a world system it is indeed a miserable system of social production. For
capitalism as a whole, of course, the organic composition of capital is not
high enough to reduce the rate of profit below its accumulation needs. But due
to the centralization and monopolization of capital, the inherent
contradictions of capital production erect barriers to its expansion long
before the abstract borders of Marx’s theory of capitalist development
find some kind of approximation in reality.

Capitalism has ceased to be a socially progressive system of production and
has become – notwithstanding all superficial appearances to the contrary
– a regressive and destructive one. It has led to the division of the
world into a few highly-industrialized countries and a large number of nations
unable to lift themselves out of a state of increasing misery. Yet the
destinies of all nations are inextricably intertwined; it is the world
situation which finally determines the future of any and every nation.
Prospects for even the most “prosperous” nations must be considered
in the light of existing world conditions; seen from this perspective, they are
indeed bleak. No longer able to extract out of their own working population
quantities of surplus-value which assure an accelerated profitable private
capital expansion, the dominating capitalist powers find that the sources of
additional profits in the under-developed parts of the world are also drying
up. To keep on exploiting the backward areas will slowly destroy their
exploitability. But not to exploit them means to reduce even further the
already insufficient profitability of capital. The great capitalist nations
will thus try to increase rather than relax their exploitation in the hope that
their own expansion will be the vehicle for, or yield as a byproduct, the
development of the capital-poor nations. Western policy still rests on a deep
faith in the profit-creating powers of competitive capital accumulation –
a faith sustained by the recently-experienced period of government-induced
“prosperity.” It is still competition on the widest scale –
the world market – to which expansion is oriented, even though on the
world-scale and in each nation separately, the market-economy seems
irretrievably lost.

The big corporations in the industrial nations, which dominate the
capitalist economies, can no longer function within the national framework;
they have become and must remain multinational corporations. “Any company
of importance that wants to survive has to be international and
multinational,” it is said, “for companies with world-wide
operations may find it easier than purely national companies to reduce costs by
moving raw-materials, production and distribution facilities, and manpower in
conformance with optimization objectives.”[1] Big corporations such as Unilever and IBM
for example, have interests in nearly every country in the world; IBM,
specifically, operates in one hundred nations and maintains fifteen
manufacturing plants in thirteen countries. “Nearly 3,000 American firms
have foreign subsidiaries and their sales are double what the United States
exports. These American-based corporations that operate on a multinational
basis conduct manufacturing enterprises abroad, extract and process natural
resources, provide services, and market the resulting goods and services on an
international scale.”[2] The growth of multinational corporations is an
international phenomenon but because of America’s dominant position in
world economy it is most pronounced in the United States. The latter’s
interests in multinational corporations is revealed in the value of her direct
investments abroad. “These increased from $11.7 billion in 1950 to $31.1
billion in 1962. In the manufacturing category alone, the increase was from
$3.8 billion to $13.2 billion.” Since World War II, “every
President, every Congress, and numerous public and lay leaders of national and
international thought have emphasized the importance to national interest of
the role of private companies operating on a multinational base. From 1950
through 1962, $29 billion was received in earnings, interest payments,
management fees, and royalties from direct investments abroad. This compares
with the $16 billion capital outflow from the United States for direct
investments abroad in the same time.”[3]

Whether or not the world structure of capitalism is such as to preclude
profitable capital expansion on a world-wide scale, every capitalist
enterprise, and every capitalist nation, tries to expand its own capital
– at the expense of other enterprises and of other nations if necessary.
The elimination of competition and the inter national centralization of
capital, while perhaps not benefiting the capitalist world as a whole, will
still benefit the advancing capitals and the stronger nations. The Canadian
economy, for instance, has long been regarded as an extension of the American
economy. “By 1963, foreign residents, mostly Americans, controlled 60 per
cent of Canadian manufacturing, 74 per cent of her petroleum and natural gas
industry and 57 per cent of mining and smelting…. Control in the
food-canning industry rose to 90 per cent. … Some business observers
attribute the continuing take-over trend to the growing internationalization of
business. For Canada, however, internationalization means mostly
Americanization, and this is often regretted.”[4] Opposition to actual and potential
foreign domination of various industries becomes increasingly more vocal in the
European nations. Both of the European trading blocs tend toward a continental
allocation of capital resources and the curtailment of American investments in
European industry; but the existence of these blocs spurs greater investments
on the part of American corporations in order to get inside their tariff walls.
Still, the developed capitalist nations comprise only the smaller part of the
world. Their future depends not so much on an intensified competition within
their own ranks as on gaining a broader base of capital expansion.

The big corporation must produce for and profitably sell within, an
expanding international market. If its profits and production on the world
market do not expand, the corporation will face stagnation within its national
market; and this will increase the need to maintain social stability through
government-induced production. In other words, private capital production must
be accentuated abroad to arrest its internal decline. A larger part of the
world must be capitalized to accommodate the expansion needs of the big
corporations. (This is the reason why development, or growth, once reserved for
Marxian theory, has now become the predominant issue of bourgeois economy.) But
it must be a development conducive to private enterprise and its accumulation
requirements, that is, a development which subordinates the developing nations
to the rules of the capitalist world market.

The “mixed” character of the capitalist market economies
obliterates an earlier distinction between government and capital. Government
is no longer merely the political arm of the capitalist class. Its economic
interests are so intertwined with those of the capitalist class that
government-policy and corporation-policy are one and the same. The need for
external expansion of capital in order to halt its internal contraction takes
on the form of an aggressive imperialism and of imperialistic competition. But
this imperialism differs from the imperialism and colonialism of laissez-faire
capitalism because capital competes for more than just raw-material sources,
privileged markets, and capital exports; it also fights for its very life as a
private-property system against new forms of capital production which are no
longer subject to economic value relations and the competitive market
mechanism.

For Keynes, imperialism and war certainly affected the economy but were not
an integral part of capitalism. For Marx, structural changes in capitalism,
national as well as international, imply competitions crises, imperialism and
war. The Second World War was quite obviously connected with the long
depression period preceding it, and the current world-wide trend of
supplementing economic force with political-military means attests to the
imperialist nature of modern capital competition. Although the miseries of war
may not be regarded as the exclusive property of capitalism, their origins and
their results are necessarily connected with the competitive character of
international capital expansion.

Imperialism may be described in political terms even though it finds its
material basis in the requirements of capital accumulation. The current
imperialist activities find their direct cause in the shifts of power relations
brought about by World War II. At first sight, these shifts could lead only to
a new war or to the acceptance of a world divided into two different systems of
capital production, with separate spheres of interest dominated by the two
strongest military powers, Russia and the United States. The second possibility
seemed, however, “unacceptable” to the Western powers, even though
it has in some manner constituted Western postwar policies. It was less
obnoxious to Russia, confident as she was of her ability to attain security,
and possibly supremacy, without the intervention of a third world war. Aside
from such “preferences,” however, and despite various adventures of
the “cold war” and even the Korean War, neither the East nor the
West showed any real inclination to provoke a major war. Though often on the
“brink” of war, both sides have thus far always retreated in time,
leaving things more or less as they were.

The West European nations, occupied with their recovery and with futile
attempts to defend their foreign possessions, were not in a position to act
upon the “long-run” needs of Western capitalism. The United States,
emerging from the war as the strongest power, had to consolidate the Western
world as a precondition for resuming effective international power politics. As
it turned out, there was no really urgent need to deal with further Russian
expansion or to deprive Russia of those spoils of war which the West –
though with some unrealistic reservations – had agreed to allow her.
Russia, too, weakened by the destruction and exertion of war, needed time to
recover and consolidate her gains. The general inability to act upon the new
problems posed by the postwar world expressed itself in the cold-war status
quo.

Everything else was based on hope – either that “historical
development” would come to the aid of the East, or that “human
nature” would reassert itself and restore the conditions of Western
capitalism in the world at large. Both the East and the West have looked
forward to a cumulative growth of the internal contradictions besetting each
power bloc. The fact that Russia’s satellites are “captive
people” and for that reason are a steady source of trouble to their new
masters, and the possibility of arising differences of interest between Russia
and China bolstered Western expectations of a possible disintegration of the
Eastern power bloc. As soon as the expansion of the Eastern bloc was checked,
whatever economic and political development went on in the world would by sheer
necessity gravitate to the stronger power center. Whatever the merits of such
expectations, they turned America’s foreign policy into a continuous
postponement of decisive political actions while awaiting a more favorable
future.

Stalinist Russia’s policy, too, was permeated by the recurrent hope
that peace would prevail despite, and because of, the cold war. Stalin saw the
capitalist world in nineteenth-century terms: to him, capitalist development
was a crisis-ridden competitive process, setting nation against nation, and
transforming economic rivalries into imperialistic wars. He felt, however, that
for some time to come, the West was not ready to wage a new war against Russia.
Western Europe was quite defenseless and the effects of the Chinese Revolution
upon the whole of Asia put America at a strategic disadvantage despite her
military might and superior productive power. This conviction was made apparent
in the challenge of the Berlin blockade, in Russia’s ruthless policy
toward her satellites, in the covert support given to national liberation
movements, and finally in the major test that the Korean War provided.

By this time, however, the situation had already changed due to the partial
recovery of Western Europe, the ebbing of the postwar revolutionary wave in
Asia, and, last but not least, the altered character of Western capitalism
itself. The immediate postwar situation could well suggest the recurrence of
those very conditions that emerged out of World War I – a semi-permanent
crisis for some countries and a general sharpening of international
competition. The Potsdam agreements promised to realize what the Versailles
Treaty of 1919 had failed to do, and the destruction of German capitalism was
bound to weaken the whole of Western Europe and produce new economic and
political frictions within Western capitalism. Yet something different
happened. Although national interests still dominated the policies of all
capitalist countries, it was soon realized that only international power
politics could safeguard those national interests, and that this required
economic as well as political collaboration. This implied that economic policy
remained the responsibility of governments, the permanent transformation of
capitalism into government-manipulated capitalism, and the emergence of some
degree of international cooperation affecting the whole of Western
capitalism.

The Korean compromise clearly indicated that though the West was still not
willing or ready to launch another world war, it was determined not to lose
further ground to the Eastern bloc. In 1954, the Korean compromise was repeated
in the Southeast Asia compromise. The Southeast Asian “peace [?]
spirit” remained purely spiritual, however, even though the
“liberation movement” came to a temporary halt. Whatever else
comprised the Russians pressed for a “general solution” of
East-West differences in the direction of clearly demarcated and respected
spheres of inter and free-for-all economic competition in the as yet
uncommitted parts of the world. Russia’s readiness for compromise
betrayed the post-Stalinist regime’s fear of war and its real concern
over the restiveness of satellite nations as well as over conditions in Russia
proper. Prevention of war, the new Russian leaders realized, required more than
the principle of Churchill’s dictum, “peace by mutual
terror.” It demanded not only that Russia and the United States come to
terms, but that they mutually control the activities of other nations which
might lead them inadvertently into general war.

The apparent trend to the peaceful solution of imperialistic antagonisms in
the wake of the Geneva Conference came to nothing. The world is simply beset by
too many problems and particularistic interests, and neither Russia nor the
United States has the degree of control over other nations which could secure
peace under all circumstances. Because change and development go on
relentlessly and affect the fortunes of the great powers, their own possible
desire for peace remains a temporary inclination. The erosion of Western
colonialism led to many national-revolutionary movements which could not be
controlled by either the West or the East. China, at any rate, could not be
subjugated to Russian rule – relations between China and Russia gave the
lie to Western propaganda which depicted China as a “colony” of
Russia.

The ceaseless erosion of Western influence in underdeveloped areas must be
arrested. Yet, short of military suppression, this can be done only by
assisting a development detrimental to the economies of the Western world. In
the American view, the end of Western colonial domination created a
“power-vacuum” in certain regions of the world, which the East will
fill if the West does not. What is meant by “vacuum” here refers to
the fact that hitherto-controlled regions have been freed: the former
colonies’ possession of “national self-determination” leaves
them open to internal and external “communist aggression;” so the
West must step in and guarantee their “independence.” In other
words, “national self-determination” cannot include a free choice
of social systems and allies, although it may include preferences with respect
to “protecting” Western powers. America’s pose as an
“anti-colonial” power in this special sense was not a deliberate
policy to weaken her Western allies – though in fact it did so –
but was adopted in the belief that it would strengthen the “free
world” as a whole. To benefit the “free world,” the colonial
powers were supposed to sacrifice special political-administrative interests,
and national-revolutionary movements were to be induced to stay within the
confines of Western capitalism. That any policy in the interest of the
“whole” of Western capitalism benefits America especially was,
after all, not the fault of the United States but is merely a consequence of
international capital development.

America’s all-embracing view, which judges the needs of the world by
the needs of American capitalism, includes, of course, numerous narrower
special interests. American competition tends, or at any rate attempts, to
drive out weaker capital entities wherever possible; thus there is a degree of
truth in the assertion that by opposing the colonialism of other nations,
America merely fosters her own. American foreign policy is not, however,
exclusively determined by such narrow special interests; there is also the
factor of her justified fear that continuous shrinking of the “free
world” will come to affect the American economy itself and hasten the
destruction of its private-enterprise nature. It does not make much difference,
then, whether the foreign holdings that have to be protected, and the foreign
markets that have to be kept open, are of great or small importance; the point
is to prevent, and if possible to “roll back,” any social movement
or nation, which intends, or might intend, to restrict or abolish
private-enterprise capitalism.

Until recently, national-revolutionary movements have tended to gravitate to
Russia to find protection and support. Now it is China, which, by its very
existence, threatens to eliminate Western capitalism’s shaky foothold in
Asia by calling forth new national-revolutionary movements that might preempt
the present and future exploitation of Asian nations by Western capital. It is
more Chinas “bolshevism” than her “nationalism” which
agitates America so greatly, even though it is the combination of the two which
proves deadly to private enterprise.

Quite independent of the meaning of these terms, the world wide defense of
“freedom” and “democracy” expresses America’s
chauvinism at home and her imperialism abroad. Bound to and taking pleasure in
the realm of their own existence, America’s ruling class cannot tolerate
an expanding social system different from its own. It is no consolation that
business may be carried on with state-capitalist no less than
private-enterprise systems, for in the absence of private capital abroad; they
see the harbinger of their own possible obsolescence at home. The ruling
class’ hatred of state-capitalist systems, which, rightly from their
point of view, they equate with “communism,” is genuine: the purely
ideological expression of this hate does not alter the fact that it stems from
the very material advantages that fall to the privileged within the
private-enterprise system. It is not an empty, superstitious hate, but rather a
capitalist class-reaction to all social change that could be detrimental to
private capital.

Competition and national antagonisms lead to wars between capitalist
nations. In a sense, war between state-capitalist and private-enterprise
systems is also a form of international capital competition. But with this
difference, that it involves not only economic interests of
nationally-organized capital groups but also the defense, or destruction, of
different social structures. A “civil war” element enters the
imperialist rivalries, even if this type of “civil-war” is carried
on not within but between nations. “Anti-communism” means
opposition to any and all movements and aspirations that threaten either the
existence or the future of private capital.

To keep the world open to capitalist exploitation has been America’s
general policy since 1945. It springs directly from the expansion requirements
of private capital and, short of the abolition of the market system, cannot be
changed. Particular interests may be lost, as for instance the investments and
business of Cuba, and similar interests may be preserved, as by the occupation
of the Dominican Republic and the overthrow of governments in Guatemala and
Iran. But the general policy must be directed toward extending America’s
role in world economy. Thus it must seek to prevent the rise of
state-capitalist systems in regions mapped out for capitalist exploitation.

The imperialist imperative of capital expansion is often denied; European
colonialism is ended and, it is said, imperialism no longer pays. Indeed, the
time seems past when a few regiments could control hundreds of millions of
people, and the returns from colonial rule are dwindling while the costs of
empire are rising. The “white man’s burden” has become an
actual burden instead of a blessing. Although individuals and corporations
still enrich themselves enormously, from an overall point of view colonialism
pays less and less; so that, in part, the principle of profitability itself
suggests a new approach to imperial rule. Imperialism by indirection appears
more promising than nineteenth-century colonialism. In view of the
national-revolutionary movements, indirect control may be superior to direct
control in the same way that the wage-system proved superior to slave-labor.
Just as monopoly over the means of production is largely sufficient by itself,
to control the working class, so monopolistic control over the destiny of world
economy may be enough to determine the behavior of nations subjected to it. In
either case, of course, political-military force stands ready to ensure the
workings of the indirect methods of control; and while the latter do work they
create the illusion of general consent.

Although thus far Western capitalism has done very little to pro mote
industrialization in the underdeveloped parts of the world, it is not opposed
to such a development wherever it might prove profitable. It does not prefer
the exploitation of its own laboring population to that of other nations; quite
the contrary. There exists, then, an apparent contradiction between the need to
keep the world open for free enterprise and the refusal of free enterprise to
avail itself of its opportunities. But this contradiction merely reflects the
contradiction of capital production itself. It is not different from the
contradiction that bursts into the open with any capitalist crisis –
namely, that production comes to a halt in spite of the fact that the needs of
the vast mass of the population are far from being satisfied. Production is
slowed down not because there is too much of it but because it be unprofitable.
Still, it will not enter the minds of the capitalists that their inability to
increase production is reason enough to abdicate in favor of a different social
system capable of coordinating social production to actual social needs. Nor
will it enter their minds that because they have not industrialized the world
and are, apparently, incapable of doing so, they should leave the world to
others who presumably can do so by employing principles of social production
different from those of private capital. Just as they defend their control,
each particular country irrespective of their own performance, so will they
defend it in the world at large.

As there is no chance of breaking the capital monopoly of the
long-established capitalist powers by way of market competition, the
industrialization of underdeveloped nations must proceed in opposition to the
capitalist world market relations, on a nationally-organized, not a
free-enterprise, basis. This possibility, however, is open only to larger
countries, such as Russia and China, where some degree of
“self-sufficiency” is possible. In most underdeveloped countries
“national independence” does not alter their dependence on the
developed capitalist nations, unless opportunities arise for aligning their
economies with those of the large-scale state-capitalist systems. Having
already been “integrated” into the capitalist world market, and
being incapable of a self-sustaining existence, they remain, as so-called
“third world” countries, objects of foreign exploitation and
imperialist competition.

The national-revolutionary exertions of such countries are dissipated in
internal power struggles – instead of being utilized in an actual
reorganization of their socio-economic structures. They gain a measure of
political control without losing their economic dependence upon the imperialist
powers. “Even the militantly socialist leaderships,” it has been
noted, are very careful not to jeopardize their economic survival by
nationalizing foreign enterprise, lest they kill the goose that lays the golden
eggs ... The usual course for the socialist governments has been the kind of
tactic adopted in Ghana, where the rate of company tax was stiffened, wage-in
creases of 20 per cent were insisted on, plus an increased investment locally
of 60 per cent of net profits after tax. Since this left the mining companies
still with dividend rates of 45 per cent, the prospect did not terrify them.
The companies now scrupulously steer clear of any suggestion of direct
interference in the national economy, and are rapidly indigenizing their
staffs. But the ‘colonial’ character of the economy
remains.”[5]

However, the continued indirect economic domination of the less-developed
nations by Western capital offers no solution for the actual needs of the vast
mass of their populations, nor will it solve the basic problem of profit for
Western capital. All that it may do is to sustain longer the disintegrating
capitalist world economy. This will require the brutal suppression of all
resentment caused by growing and unrelieved social misery. It is quite safe to
predict that least in the underdeveloped part of the world the prevailing
misery will lead to ever new rebellions against the dominating foreign powers
and their native collaborators whether they belong to t traditional ruling
classes or to new ruling classes tossed up by the anti-colonial movements.

The colonialism of old is over, it is true. But it has been replaced by a
system of neocolonialism, in which nations that are nominally independent
continue to be exploited by foreign capital. Within this setting, the contest
between the state-capitalist and private-enterprise systems for an increasing
share of world production and trade necessarily concerns itself with the future
of the as yet “uncommitted” nations of the “third
world.” If these nations should transform themselves into state
capitalist systems, they would prevent a further penetration of private capital
into their economies and get a measure of control over their trade relations
which would restrict or even exclude their exploitation by the capitalist
nations. This would hamper the expansion of private capital and enlarge the
“socialist world,” leading to a more rapid general transformation
of capitalism from its private-property to its state-organized form.
Imperialism is thus not only an instrument of exploitation and aggrandizement;
for the West, it is the only instrument with which to safeguard the future of
private capital.

Like the old colonialism, neocolonialism is practiced not in the interests
of the imperialist nation as a nation, but in the interests of its ruling
class, and to the special benefit of that powerful segment of that class which
operates internationally and co-determines foreign policy. “What is the
real value of their Indian dominion to the British nation and people,”
Marx once asked; for “directly, that is in the shape of tribute, of
surplus of Indian receipts over Indian expenditures, nothing whatever reaches
the British Treasury... Such being the case, it is evident that the advantage
of Great Britain from her Indian Empire must be limited to the profits and
benefits which accrue to individual British subjects …Against all this a
very large offset is to be made. The military and naval expenses paid out of
the pockets of the people of England on Indian account have been constantly
increasing with the extent of the Indian dominion ... Add to this the career of
endless conquest and perpetual aggression in which the English are involved by
the possession of India, and it may well be doubted whether, on the whole, this
dominion does not threaten to cost quite as much as it can ever be expected to
come to.”[6] The
fact that the costs of en became far greater than the returns was one reason
that direct subjugation was replaced by neocolonialism.

Although the returns from colonialism accrue to individuals while its costs
are carried by all taxpayers, the difference between costs and returns finds a
limit in the limitations of subsidization by way of tax. Until these limits are
reached, the fact that the income from colonial exploitation may be less than
the national expense involved, far from deterring colonial activities, will
rather spur them on in the expectation of a final reversal of the imbalance. It
is not just to safeguard the returns of special interests, for instance, that
the American government accepts the so much larger costs of its wide-spread
foreign interventions. It pays the latter in the hope of increasing the former.
This might be, and most probably is, a hopeless task, so that the whole
imperialistic effort may accomplish nothing more than safeguarding the returns
of special interests, if even that. But the probability of such negative
results does not free the capitalist nations from the compulsive need to
operate on an international scale.

Even an isolationist, non-imperialistic America would be forced to subsidize
its dominant capital groups by way of government purchases, if only to avoid
the depression conditions of capital stag nation. These subsidies have to come
out of total production; the “returns” of subsidized capital imply
the social “costs” of waste-production. This is precisely the
dilemma which capitalism tries to overcome by external expansion. Imperialism
projects the national dilemma to the international scene. But there is a
difference. If waste-production in the form of expenditures for imperialistic
purposes should result in the creation of conditions for an accelerated private
capital expansion, the future “returns” may well exceed the present
“costs.” In that case, the production of waste would have turned
out to be the instrument for the production of capital, the necessary expense
of an increased exploitation, as has been true for all previous imperialistic
activity. Whereas waste-production on a national scale merely increases the
difficulties of capital expansion of which it is itself an expression,
waste-production by way of war might bring about structural changes of world
economy and shifts of political power relations conducive to a new period of
capital expansion for the victorious capitalist powers.

Such cynical notions rest on the illusion that capitalism in general, and
American capitalism in particular, has no historical boundaries. But even if
they recognize the trend towards the progressive dissolution of the market
system, capitalists can only act as if the trend was non-existent, or could be
halted and reversed. Being in fact determined by the trend, their activities
become increasingly imperialistic, in order to contain and, if possible, to
destroy socio-economic systems different from their own. The more mixed their
own economies become, the more urgent becomes the need to arrest the spread of
“nationalization” and “socialization” within the world
economy, not only to gain more control over it but also to limit
government-induced production in their own countries. It is for this reason
that the mixed economy remains geared to war and mobilization for war; indeed,
the mixed economy is nothing other than the capitalist economy as a
semi-permanent war-economy. What during the depression appeared at first as a
possible solution to the economic problems of the market system, now displays
itself as an added cause of capitalist imperialism.

However, the consequences of war are bound up with the forces of production.
These forces now make possible the destruction of most of the world and its
population, which seems to preclude the utilization of war for purposes of
capital accumulation. Shortly after World War II, it was still possible to look
upon war as a “new industry” capable of solving capitalist
problems, including that of pecuniary profits. “The destruction of the
European economy,” it was said, “has solved the problem of
effective demand for the American economy. During the depression we got
nowhere. The great lack was the absence of effective demand. Lately, these
demands have been created out of sheer necessity, and ... we are in a dawn of
the greatest industrial era this country ever had.”[7] This kind of optimism cannot prevail in
view of the destructiveness of modern warfare which may well include the use of
atomic weapons.

However, it is not possible to proceed rationally in an irrational world.
The recognition that war can no longer solve the problems that harass the
capitalist world does not change a behavior pattern which may, at any time,
issue into war. No capitalist desired the losses of depression, yet the
relentless competition for capital nonetheless led into crisis and depression;
in other words, “normal” behavior caused the
“abnormality” of the crisis. It is no different with regard to war.
The relentless drive to gain or to retain political and economic dominance is
the outcome and sum total of all the asocial behavior that characterizes social
life under capitalism. The recognition that war may be suicide, which is by no
means unanimous, does not affect the drift towards a new world war. Those who
make political decisions are no less trapped in this cul-de-sac than are the
emasculated and indifferent masses. Simply by making the “right”
decisions, as determined by the specific needs of their nations and the
security of their social structures, they may destroy themselves and a large
part of the world. Foreign policy in the postwar world has been essentially
nothing but preparation for war, and only the perspective of war made possible
that measure of collaboration which the Western alliances manifested. Aside
from this, there has been no “policy” at all, just that
impenetrable amalgam of contradictory actions and reactions by which uncounted
special interests try to assert or defend themselves. America’s postwar
policy consists of the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, the Korean War, the Caracas declaration, the Southeast
Asia collective defense treaty, the mutual treaty with Taiwan, the Baghdad Pact
and the Eisenhower Doctrine – a foreign policy made consistent by the
actuality or expectancy of war.

The defense of Western capitalism is generally expressed in
political-ideological terms. “Communist aggression” is fought not
to make money – at any rate not immediately – but to defend
“freedom” even where it does not exist –
“freedom” being presumably understood in terms of democratic
institutions such as prevail in the United States and Western Europe. The
outcome of World War II assured a rapidly developing American interest in the
nations of Southeast Asia. The collapse of Nationalist China only gave it
greater urgency. “Because of its ideology,” it was said by an
American policy-maker, “Communist China is a model, so to say, of
domestic totalitarianism, in complete contrast to the sort of development that
we believe would foster the true welfare of these countries.” Although
“we seek no preferred economic position in this area ... our policy seeks
to deal with the central aggressive Communist power and its satellites by
preventing their expansion as the first and essential step towards whatever
relationship may later evolve.”[8] China must be contained; that is, the nations of
Asia and Southeast Asia must be prevented from leaving the Western fold.

Given the weak position of the rising native bourgeoisie, it is clear that
the political structures of emerging nominally-democratic nations are as
authoritarian as they are in the nominally-communist nations. Both
“communism” and “democracy” are here purely ideological
terms, indicating no more than two different develop mental tendencies –
the one toward state-capitalism and away from Western domination, the other
towards a market economy to be kept in the neo-colonial structure of Western
capitalism. To make the second course prevail requires at times the physical
presence of American military power and the return to old-style colonialism.
The war in Southeast Asia, according to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, not only
is a moral imperative but also is necessitated by national interests.
“Within the next decade or two,” he has said, “there will be
a billion Chinese on the mainland, armed with nuclear weapons, with no
certainty about what their attitude toward the rest of Asia will be. Now from a
strategic point of view, it is not very attractive to think of the world cut in
two by Asian Communism, reaching out through Southeast Asia and Indonesia,
which we know has been their objective; and that these hundreds of millions of
people in the free nations of Asia should be under the deadly and constant
pressure of the authorities in Peking, so that their future is circumscribed by
fear. Now these are vitally important matters to us, who are a Pacific and an
Atlantic power. After all, World War II hit us from the Pacific, and Asia is
where two-thirds of the world’s people live. So we have a tremendous
stake in the ability of the free nations of Asia to live in peace; and to turn
the interests of people in mainland China to the pragmatic requirements of
their own people, and away from the doctrinaire and ideological
adventurism.”[9]
However, America is not only a Pacific but also a capitalist power and it is as
such that she desires a “peaceful” capitalist Asia – because
America cannot do what she suggests the Chinese should do, namely concentrate
upon “the pragmatic requirements of her own people.”

1. G. A. Steiner, Multinational Corporate Planning, New York, 1966, p. 316.

2. H. H. Fowler, National Interests and Multinational Business, in Multinational Planning p. 123

3. Ibid., P.124.

4. The New York Times, February 11, 1966.

5. P. Worsley, The Third World, London, 1964, p. 241.

6. K. Marx, “British Incomes in India,” in On Colonialism, Moscow, pp. 157-

7. Proceedings of a Conference sponsored by the Economic and Business Foundation. New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, December 20, 1948, p. 18

8. W. P. Bundy, The United States and Asia, in China and the Peace of Asia, Ed. by A. Buchan, London, 1965, pp. 17-21.

9. The New York Times, October 13, 1967.


     From : Marxists.org

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     Chapter 19 -- Added : March 03, 2021

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