Europe in the era of imperialism 1871-1919. Tarle Evgeniy Viktorovich
2. American and European capitalism after the war
I cite all this as an explanation of the fact that in the first years after the war American capital took a strong position. This is not the place to talk about this fact in more detail: this is one of the main topics of the second part of my book, where we will talk about 1919–1926.
For now, I’ll just point out that immediately after the war, an interesting sociological phenomenon was observed: America remained in its previous position of a strong money economy, and Europe discovered a kind of tendency to return to ancient, long-forgotten times, to centuries when state bankruptcy was commonplace, no one in particular an embarrassing event that periodically returned, although not at regular intervals, such as, for example, a flood or a hailstorm, or the death of livestock.
In the first years after the war, when unprecedented paper inflation followed in a number of countries, when a complete separation (quite openly, not at all disguised) of the issue of paper money from their possible gold backing reigned, when state bankruptcy became the same normal way of organizing financial affairs as before, for example, there was a loan or a new tax, then some financiers expressed the idea that all these phenomena of 1919 and subsequent years had already happened, although in a slightly different form, for example in the 18th century, and that in general for a century (1814–1914 .) from the end of the Napoleonic wars to the beginning of the great catastrophe of 1914 must be looked at as exception, and imaginary money, constant state bankruptcies and similar phenomena should be looked at as a rule, as something much more natural and lasting; that a series of fortunate and exceptional conditions enabled Europe for a whole century to maintain a gold or paper circulation in an established relationship dependent on gold; that all the rules of the so-called theory of finance are not the slightest scientific, i.e. mandatory, do not have and cannot have any significance, because all the so-called “financial law” is an attempt to make customs financial life of the 19th century, a pseudo-scientific theory.
Inflation was not only an inevitable consequence of the war, but also an equally inevitable consequence of the social, political, and psychological shift that the entire situation that developed after the war entailed. All capitalist states were afraid bring about a revolution by abandoning paper money inflation; the alternative was just that: either a revolution of the starving masses, or at least temporary state bankruptcy. Let's clarify this idea.
The war of 1914 broke out at a period in the economic history of mankind (and, in particular, Europe), when life was already becoming more expensive every year, relatively slowly, but continuously. Economists now consider it possible to establish the following general characteristics: from 1825 to 1850 - a slow and continuous reduction in the cost of basic necessities; from 1850 to 1869 (under the influence, by the way, of the discovery of huge gold mines in California) - an increase in the cost of living; from the beginning of the 70s, especially from 1873 to 1895 - a new reduction in the cost of living; from 1895 until the start of the 1914 war - an increase in prices, which in some places became catastrophically rapid from the beginning of the war. This is an increase in price from 1921–1924. begins (not everywhere) to stop, and in some places (for example, in England) a certain tendency is revealed to return to the pre-war pace.
For France, for example, this increase in prices during the war was reflected in the fact that the total cost of goods (both food and clothing) increased by the end of 1918 by more than four times compared with the beginning of 1914. What was to be done? To deny workers a corresponding or even approaching normal increase in wages meant causing an explosion. Go to This post-war capitalism in Western Europe did not dare. Let us not forget that, not to mention the defeated countries, even in the “victor countries” the mood of the workers in the first years after the war was very irritated. The furious, unheard of, long-lasting massacre was still in everyone’s memory. And questions about who is “guilty” and who is “innocent” in the war, who sent a telegram at what time (and where exactly) in the July days of 1914 - all these bickering seemed senseless and even offensive to the masses at that time. obvious insignificance, with the memory of millions of corpses just buried in the ground.
The leading elites of the capitalist world in all European countries in the first period after the war were under no circumstances able or willing to behave in any provocative manner. In Russia, nearby, a social revolution was going on, and this, too, at first did not encourage “resistance tactics.” Only gradually did this situation (and even then not everywhere) begin to change. Financial policy (or, more precisely, the policy of state bankruptcy to one degree or another, for one period or another) was dictated not only by unpaid bills in American hands, but also by the need to somehow provide work, albeit half, a piece of bread, although cut , to the irritated masses.
And where they decided to abandon inflation, they unquestioningly agreed to support for many years at the state expense an army of millions of unemployed, and for some time agreed to colossal cash subsidies to support mines and other enterprises, as, for example, in England. The year 1919 in England was a year of strikes and preparations for strikes, which were sometimes averted with great difficulty by government intervention and (usually in 1919) concessions by the employers. It was not very calm in the country. At the beginning of March, there was a mutiny among the troops - in Kinmel Park, in the Canadian division. We had to act with extreme caution. In working circles, many clearly sympathized with the revolution in Russia, and in the army they spoke of their reluctance to wage an internal war after an external one. This ferment continued in 1920. Not only in the troops, but also in the police, things were very unhappy.
In the spring of 1919, Lloyd George received a deputation from the London police asking for an improvement in his position and quite openly threatening a strike. True, it didn’t come to a strike, but already in 1919–1921. one way or another, completely in some cases, partially in others, to satisfy the demands of the police. It was clear that under these conditions it would be very imprudent for the time being to rely too much on the troops and police and to provoke a revolutionary uprising of the workers with a light heart. The policy of concessions was dictated by all circumstances. Western European capitalism has so far succeeded in defending itself from the social revolution. But to defend oneself from those demands with which the working class came out completely unanimously, European capital succeeded very rarely in 1919 and the following years. Yes, he did not want to bring it to a decisive “test of strength,” especially in the first years after the war. And this further illustrates the strength and degree of strength and self-confidence of American capital after the war, compared with European capital.
What is typical for both foreign and domestic policy? American capital in the first years after the war? An offensive, a challenge, complete confidence in victory both over rivals from outside and over revolutionaries within. What characterizes both foreign and domestic policy European capital in 1919–1922? Bankruptcy, non-payment of debt obligations to an external creditor, the issuance of unsecured paper money, a retreat before American industry, American trade, American bank takeovers, before the dictatorship of the New York Stock Exchange and a simultaneous retreat before its proletariat, before its basic demands - to get for it from anywhere work and food.
On this basis, the above-mentioned painful and literary exaggerated confidence in the “death of Europe”, etc., developed; dull tremors and tremors were felt, and the imagination already saw an all-consuming earthquake; The autocratic master of life that reigned before 1914 and started the war in 1914 - European capitalism - found itself in 1919–1922. (and partly later) in a difficult internal and external situation, and impressionable writers, amateurs and literary artists began to imagine not even a revolution, but the death of Europe and almost the entire human culture. “Death” did not come, and this word in this case does not have a clear meaning.
European capital gradually began to win back some of its former positions from American capital, and 1924, and especially 1925–1926, were in many ways no longer similar to 1919 or 1920. We don’t know how the struggle between American and European capital will go further, but note this fact is necessary.
According to data collected by the League of Nations, the overall picture of the trading activities of Europe and America is drawn in the following figures:
Digital material relating to equally revealing categories of facts gives similar results when compared. It is clear that Europe, after the severe crisis and painful upheavals of the first years following the war, is beginning (since 1924) to recover.
Nevertheless, with all these reservations, the reader, recalling the first pages of this book, must understand that if even before the war of 1914 American capital acted as a factor of enormous importance, then in the very first years after 1914-1918. this value has increased enormously.
The meaning is ( If it will intensify) for European capital, of course, is fatal: the globe is becoming even tighter than it was; those vents that delayed the explosion, that prevented the onset of external and internal cataclysms, can now close one after another. The class struggle within the social organism of each capitalist power, the international struggle from without, cannot but intensify especially sharply in Europe, If The further victorious march of American capital will develop after a stop and some retreat in 1924–1926.
After the unprecedented bloodshed that began in 1914 and only very gradually stopped after 1919, the generations that survived this era may find themselves for some time too tired and exhausted for new efforts of will, for new external and internal wars. But the soil for new revolutions, as well as for new wars, certainly exists. “Facts are revolutionary, although people are not revolutionary.” And if those who see signs of some kind of “death of Europe” in the historical evolution developing after 1919 are carried away and fantasizing, then those who proclaim the supposedly arrived era of “pacifism” in external relations and social “pacification” are no less fantasizing. "in the internal relations of European powers. AND shadows there is no basis for all these complacent dreams, and the dreamers themselves (insofar as they are generally sincere) are sometimes too prone to accept more ongoing fatigue for already the ensuing “pacification”.
Neither “destruction” nor “salvation”: ongoing continuous, often stormy and pathogenic, evolution, the ongoing simultaneous external (international) and internal (class) struggle for its existence and dominance, characteristic of the sociological nature of capitalism, a struggle developing for American capital in conditions more favorable than before 1914 for European capital - in conditions generally less favorable, both external and internal - a struggle, in the long process of which further cataclysms, painful shifts and clashes remain more than likely. One can even put it this way: it would rather be incredibly long-term absence of these phenomena.
I hope to dedicate a special book to an analysis of the main phenomena of the era full of deepest historical interest that came after the end of the World War.
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The 15th-18th centuries are characterized by several stages of development of capitalism: commercial capitalism and manufacturing capitalism. The main forms of organization of production were capitalist simple cooperation (CPC) and capitalist complex cooperation (manufacture). Capitalist simple cooperation (CSC) is a unity of joint action and a form of association. This is the cooperation of homogeneous (identical) concrete labor. It can take various forms:
1) purchase of finished products by a merchant;
2) advances or loans for certain works, the merchant in this case acts as a moneylender;
3) distribution system, the merchant - moneylender - entrepreneur controls almost the entire production process of pseudo-independent home-based artisans.
Fernand Braudel combines the second and third forms, calling such production “homework.” Homework is a form of production in which the merchant acts as an employer. Simple cooperation appeared long before capitalism, but only capitalist freedom - personal and material freedom - made the CCP a ubiquitous phenomenon. Researchers find homework in the 13th century and in the 18th century, but its peak occurred in the 16th century. Let's give the source. The traveler writes about the Swabian villages of the early 18th century: “It was summer, all the women left their houses and sat on the threshold of their homes. And each...was hard at work: spinning lace, black or white, or “blond”, in which linen, gold and silk threads were intertwined. At the end of the week, the lacemaker will take the fruits of her labor either to a neighboring market, or, most often, to a buyer who advanced her with raw materials, designs brought from Holland, and who retained her products. Then she will buy vegetable oil, some meat, rice for the Sunday feast.” It turns out that the famous Dutch lace was made in Swabian villages, the traveler was surprised.
The second stage of development of capitalism is the manufacturing stage. Marx believes that from the middle of the 16th century to the last third of the 18th century there was a manufacturing period of capitalism in Western Europe. Manufacture is a relatively large capitalist enterprise based on the division of wage labor and craft technology. It arose in the XV-XVI centuries. and at the end of the 18th century it was replaced by machine production. The owners of the manufactories were merchants, wealthy artisans, and hired workers or pseudo-independent small artisans worked for them. The main types were dispersed, mixed and centralized manufactories. The basis for their development could not be the guild craft with its police and prohibitive statutes. Therefore, the first manufactories appeared in rural areas based on crafts. Manufacture emerged from simple cooperation. Initially, the merchant-entrepreneur was engaged in the purchase and sale of finished products of independent rural artisans (for example, fabrics, cloth). Then he began to bring raw materials to the artisans, and later more advanced machines. Thus, he cut off the artisan from the market for finished products, from the market for raw materials, and, by providing him with machines, he actually subjugated all production to himself. Former independent artisans turned into hired workers receiving wages. The only thing left in their property is their home workshop. This form of organization of production is dispersed manufacture. Gradually, an entrepreneur could isolate one or several operations and concentrate them in a separate workshop under one roof (for example: the process of dyeing fabrics - a dyehouse). This is how mixed manufactories appeared. The third type is centralized enterprises, the entrepreneur created them himself: he built a large workshop, bought equipment, raw materials, hired workers, i.e. controlled the entire production process. Centralized manufacture came in two varieties: heterogeneous and organic. Heterogeneous manufactory is the union in one workshop of workers of various specialties, interconnected by the sequential execution of all operations for the manufacture of a relatively complex product. For example, a cloth factory, in addition to weavers, felters, spinners, dyers, etc. work here.
Organic manufacturing unites workers of the same specialty in one workshop with the subsequent division of homogeneous work into more detailed operations assigned to individual workers. An example would be a dye shop. Organic centralized manufactory was more progressive than heterogeneous one, because it gave higher labor productivity, high quality due to the disaggregation of production and, therefore, higher profits. Indeed, in organic manufacturing, the division of labor reaches its limit, each worker performs one or two operations, thanks to which he becomes a virtuoso of his craft, and his tools acquire such a degree of specialization that this closely leads to the creation of machines and mechanisms. True, in the XVI-XVII centuries. There were still not very many manufactures. Karl Marx believed that “manufacture stood out as an architectural decoration on an economic edifice, the broad basis of which was urban crafts and rural side industries.” (Marx K. Capital. – T. 23, p. 381).
That is, the manufacture existed in a feudal environment and was often persecuted both by the guilds and by the state. An example is 16th century Spain.
The development of capitalism in agriculture went in parallel with the emergence of manufactories. It is convenient to trace this in the history of the 16th century. Having driven the peasants off the land, the landlords concentrated vast land holdings in their hands. They leased part of the land to peasants or wealthy townspeople.
1. The original form of such rent was sharecropping.
Researchers find it in England, France, Italy, Germany, Russia! Sharecropping is a type of lease (letting for temporary use) of land in which the landowner is paid rent in the form of a certain share of the harvest (half, third, tithe, etc.). It happened differently in life: sometimes the land owner gave the tenant land, seeds, and equipment. Sometimes the sharecropper himself, wholly or partially provided his farm with seeds, as well as live or dead implements. The tenant did not always cultivate the land on his own; he could resort to hired labor - renting out part of the land to a subtenant. In the fall, the sharecropper gave part of the harvest to the owner of the land, sold part of it, and kept part for himself for food and sowing. Rent under sharecropping was semi-feudal in nature.
In England, sharecropping is gradually giving way to a purely capitalist form of entrepreneurship - farming. The farmer rented a large plot of land from the landlord and paid a fixed fee for it. He himself bought the seeds, equipment, and paid the labor of hired workers himself. Naturally, only a wealthy person could run such a household. In the future, he could buy the land from the landlord and become its owner. This is how a large capitalist economy was created. And again we will make a reservation - there were very few such farms in the 16th century, the new lived everywhere next to the old - the feudal nobility, dependent peasants were everywhere. Already in France the development of capitalism in agriculture was slower than in England. In countries such as Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Spain, the overall historical development turned out to be inhibited and took the path of regression. Here the feudal nobility was so powerful that it was able, with the help of the state, to destroy elements of progress in industry and agriculture. In these countries in the middle of the 16th century. the process of refeudalization began.
In countries with the irreversible development of capitalism, technical and economic progress has given rise to new classes and a new image of the state.
At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, the life of Western Europe was marked by such tangible changes - the growth of production, trade, the flourishing of culture and knowledge of the world around man, that some historians of that time began to talk about the beginning of a New era of world history.
Understanding the novelty of life and exploring the causes of this phenomenon, they soon began to divide it into ancient, middle and modern. This periodization underlies world history.
Let's look at the beginning of the development of capitalism and its features.
The Age of Capitalism
New history is the history of the emergence, development and success of a new type of production and social relations - capitalism (Latin capitalis - main), which replaced feudalism with its violence and coercion.
The 16th to 18th centuries saw the rapid growth of new forms of production and trade. Everything indicated that elements of capitalist relations were rapidly developing within feudalism, and feudalism itself was increasingly becoming an obstacle to the economic and social development of society.
From feudalism to capitalism
The transition from feudalism to capitalism lasted for many decades, but the beginning of the crisis of feudalism clearly manifested itself precisely at the beginning of the 16th century. The feudal-monarchical system with its class privileges and complete disregard for the human person hindered the development of society.
Capitalism is a progress compared to feudalism. Capitalism is a system based on private (personal) property and the use of hired labor.
The main figures of society increasingly became the capitalist (bourgeois entrepreneur) and the wage worker (a free man selling his strength).
With their labor they ensured economic growth in both industrial and agricultural production. They did not allow society to find itself in the dead end of stagnation, where feudalism was leading it.
A similar process simultaneously occurred in agricultural production. The layer of nobility that began to orient its farms towards the market became bourgeois.
Wealthy peasant farmers also became bourgeois, turning into commodity producers (agricultural products for sale on the market).
The process of forming a bourgeois intelligentsia (Latin iritelligens - understanding, reasonable) began. Scientists, lawyers, masters of the new art, writers, teachers, doctors, etc. were especially dangerous for feudalism.
From them the ideas of humanism began to spread. They began to speak more and more loudly in their activities about the human right to live and work in conditions worthy of him.
What is the bourgeoisie
The term “bourgeoisie” is of French origin: this is how the inhabitants of the city (burg) were called in the Middle Ages. Over time, the word “bourgeoisie” began to mean not just city residents (burghers), but those people who, having saved money and hired workers, began to organize the production of any goods (things for sale).
Therefore, in the history of the development of capitalism, its early stage is called the period of “primitive accumulation”, and the production created on its basis began to be called “commodity”, working for the market (market economy).
Capitalism compared to feudalism is, first of all, a much higher level of production. This was achieved on the basis of a new organization of the process of manufacturing goods.
Having accumulated money and used it to make a profit, the bourgeois entrepreneur became a capitalist. Money only becomes “capital” when it generates income; money hidden “under the mattress” is not capital.
A new form of organization of production found its expression in manufacture. The thing (product) here is still created by the manual labor of workers. But the production process is already divided into separate operations (division of labor).
One worker performs one job (cuts sheets of iron into pieces of a certain size). At the same time, another worker gives them a certain shape, a third simultaneously makes blanks from wood, and a fourth processes them. All this goes to the fifth worker, who attaches the iron part to the wooden one, and the result is, for example, a shovel.
Each worker performed only one operation, and in general this made it possible to sharply increase labor productivity (the amount of products created per unit of time, for example, in 1 hour). Many more goods began to enter the market, and the law of competition began to operate.
Conditions for the development of capitalism
In order to be successful in the fight against his competitors, the capitalist-manufacturer is vitally interested in reducing the cost (the labor time required to produce a product, expressed in money) of manufactured products and improving their quality.
This gives him increased profits. Therefore, the owner of the production strives to improve the technical level of the equipment, its efficiency, and use the latest machines.
Those enterprises where all this was successfully carried out prospered, and the profits of their owners grew. The owners of ineffective enterprises went bankrupt. There was a “natural selection” among capitalist entrepreneurs.
Industrial civilization
The development of capitalism contributed to technical progress and growth, which entailed a sharp acceleration in the development of industry.
This was the main feature of the first steps of a new civilization, which historians later called “industrial” - industrial civilization. It replaced the agrarian-craft civilization of the Middle Ages.
The beginning of the process of the collapse of feudalism was accompanied by the ruin of a mass of small producers - peasants and artisans. From them an army of hired workers began to form.
Having gone through a very difficult and no less difficult path, this new social stratum gradually merged into the capitalistically organized branches of industry and agriculture.
And at the beginning of modern times, many bankrupt small owners became workers in dispersed (distribution of work from house to house) or centralized (work under one roof) manufactories.
In the 16th-18th centuries. Important changes took place in trade and finance. In the most developed countries of Europe (England, etc.), trade contributed to the disintegration of feudal relations.
It became a source of “primitive accumulation”, that is, a source of enrichment for a new layer of society - the bourgeoisie. A merchant (merchant) often turned into a capitalist-entrepreneur who founded a manufactory.
Cartoon "Capitalism" The main phenomenon of intra-European trade was the beginning of the formation and development of single national markets, primarily in England and. This was facilitated by the policy of mercantilism (Italian mercante - to trade) - the creation by the state of favorable conditions for its trade.
As a result of the Great Geographical Discoveries, new directions of foreign trade appeared: to America and Asia.
A flow of cheap goods poured into Europe: gold and silver, and tea, rice, cotton, tobacco, etc. Trade began to acquire global proportions. Lisbon (Portugal), Seville (Spain), Antwerp (Netherlands), (England) became major shopping centers.
All together, this gave a powerful impetus to the development of capitalism throughout the world and, above all, in Europe.
The emergence of exchanges
New forms of trade organization appeared. Exchanges emerged (Latin bursa - wallet). Transactions involving the purchase and sale of securities were carried out on the stock exchange. On the commodity exchange, trade transactions were concluded based on samples of goods.
An increasing number of merchant organizations - trading companies - emerged to trade with various parts of the world.
The beginning of modern times and the development of capitalism was marked by the emergence of the first banks. These were special financial organizations that provided intermediation in payments and credit. The first banks appeared in the 15th century, first in Italy and then in Germany.
The development of capitalism is an inevitable phase in the development of modern civilization. However, the fruits of capitalism are not always as good as they sound in theory.
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another eastern power to foreign lands.
So, colonization in the sense that interests us should be considered the creation on foreign territory of closed administrative-autonomous enclaves that copied the metropolis, were closely connected with it and relied on its effective and interested support. It is quite obvious that enclaves of this kind could be created and were actually created only where private entrepreneurial activity was officially considered leading and was actively encouraged by the state interested in its prosperity. That is why colonies of a trade and economic nature were created (if we talk about colonies in the full sense of the word and take into account all of the above) almost exclusively by Europeans - both in ancient times and in the Middle Ages. It was precisely this type of colony that was the source on which in the 15th–16th centuries. Colonialism emerged as a phenomenon of a slightly different order, distinguished by different forms and, most importantly, different scales. The connection between this colonialism and emerging European capitalism is quite obvious.
The genesis of European capitalism and colonialism
As already mentioned, late medieval Europe after the Renaissance was structurally to a large extent close to antiquity, and it developed in the same direction (Orientation towards supporting private property initiative) and at an increasingly accelerated pace. Europe gradually de-feudalized: the institutions and norms generated by feudalism became a thing of the past, along with the inherent tinsel and splendor of feudal rulers, and the pomp of Catholic worship. All this was replaced by an ever-increasing cohort of representatives of the so-called third estate, primarily city-dwellers-burghers, whose activities were market-oriented and whose ideas about the world were based on the puritanical severity of Protestantism. And although this movement took place in the 15th–16th centuries. While still very weak and hardly noticeable, the very fact of defeodalization and absolutism coming to the fore was an external manifestation of precisely this kind of process. Late medieval Europe slowly but at an accelerating pace became pre-capitalist. What was the basis of the mentioned process and what factors contributed to it?
The process of the genesis of capitalism is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, and it is not possible to analyze it in this work. We can only recall that one of the primary conditions of the process of genesis was what Marx called in his time primitive accumulation. Another, and perhaps even more important, was the Puritan spirit of the Protestant ethic studied by M. Weber, which made it possible to create such accumulations. Along with this, perhaps the most important factor in the successful course of the entire process, and in particular primitive accumulation, was something that is most directly related to our topic - the Great Geographical Discoveries and the subsequent new wave of colonization, unprecedented in history in terms of scale and consequences non-European lands.
So, colonization again. As before, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, it was based on fundamental structural differences in the lifestyles of those who colonized and those who were the object of colonization. But just as much as pre- and early capitalist Europe surpassed the ancient one in its power, capabilities and potential (and even more so the trade unions and republics of the early Middle Ages), the new wave of colonization turned out to be more powerful than all the previous ones. It all began, as just mentioned, with the Great Geographical Discoveries, with the revolution in navigation, which made it possible to successfully overcome the oceans.
Transit trade with the countries of the East has long created among Europeans a noticeably exaggerated idea of the fabulous riches of the eastern countries, especially India, where spices and rarities came from. Transit trade, as you know, is expensive, and impoverished Europe had practically nothing to pay. This was one of the
important incentives that encouraged Europeans to find new routes to India - sea routes, the simplest and cheapest. The search for new sea routes in itself was not yet a manifestation of capitalist expansion. Moreover, one of the paradoxes of the era was that the countries that had previously, and perhaps more than others, succeeded in the field of colonial conquests and geographical discoveries (Portugal and Spain), not only had not yet stood on the threshold of capitalism, but, on the contrary, were quite strong feudal monarchies. As is known, the wealth accumulated and looted by the Portuguese and Spaniards did not serve them well and was not used by them as the initial basis for the rapid development of capitalism. There are reasons for this, and Weber's theory of Protestant (as opposed to Catholic) ethics explains something in this sense. However, the Spaniards and especially the Portuguese did their job - Great geographical discoveries with the development of sea routes to new countries and continents, not to mention the fact that they played a significant role in the preparation, even the active implementation of a new wave of colonialism on an unprecedented scale.
After the 16th century Other countries came to the forefront in the already actively developing colonization (this refers not only to colonial trade, but also to the development of foreign lands by settlers), as well as in capitalist development: first Holland, then England and France. It was they who most successfully used the funds received from colonial activity as that very initial basic capital, which ultimately contributed to the acceleration and even radicalization of their capitalist development. Thus, the paradox of history, which allowed the first step on the path to the new to be taken not by those countries that were closer to this new thing, but by others, turned out to be corrected by the same history, albeit a century or two later (for history, especially of that time, this is quite short period of time). However, history remains history and, naturally, must be perceived in all its complex and contradictory reality. And this complexity and inconsistency lies not only in the fact that the undoubted connection between early capitalism and colonialism is by no means straightforward, but also in the fact that the phenomenon of colonialism as such, familiar to our ears, is very ambiguous.
It is no coincidence that the question was raised above about the origins of colonialism and colonization in ancient times, in the Middle Ages. The fact is that colonialism as a phenomenon is usually perceived very negatively. Meanwhile, it was precisely due to the colonization of the nearby outskirts, and sometimes even distant overseas territories, that the process of development, mutual influence of cultures, etc. took place, which made a significant contribution to the development of mankind. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly define what should be understood by the term “colonialism” and in what sense we will use this word further.
Colonialism in the broad sense of the word is that important phenomenon of world-historical significance that has just been mentioned. This is the economic development of empty or sparsely populated lands, the settlement of migrants in overseas territories, who brought with them the organization of society, work and life that was familiar to them and entered into very difficult relationships with the aboriginal population, who were, as a rule, at a lower stage of development. Each specific situation, consisting of many sometimes subtle components, produces its own result and creates in one case or another a unique confluence of conditions and circumstances, on which much depends, including the future fate of the colony and its population. But despite the uniqueness of specific circumstances, there are also some general patterns that make it possible to reduce the phenomenon of colonialism to several main options.
One of them is the gradual development of distant alien, but empty or sparsely populated lands by settler-colonists, who are a more or less compact community and make up the overwhelming majority of the population in the new territory they have developed. In this case, the aborigines are usually pushed to the outskirts and worse lands, where they gradually die out or are exterminated in skirmishes with the colonists. So they were
North America, Australia, and New Zealand were developed and populated. With some reservations, this can also be applied to the South African Boer republics. On these lands, over time, as we know, state formations arose according to the European model - the same one that was transferred as a self-evident social genotype by migrants who, if we do not mean South Africa, formed the basis of the population (10% admixture of blacks, descendants African slaves brought to North America, in this case did not have a significant impact on the process as a whole).
Another option is the migration of new settlers to areas with a significant local population, which is also based on its own significant traditions of civilization and statehood. This option is much more complex and can in turn be divided into various sub-options. But, without complicating the typology, let us pay attention to only one important detail - the strength of the developed civilizational tradition. In Central and South America there was such a tradition, and it was centuries old, but it turned out to be fragile and locally limited, which to a large extent explains the ease with which its weak shoots were destroyed by the colonialists. If we also take into account that these colonialists were not the British with their strong capitalist tendencies and the powerful spirit of Puritan Protestantism, but the Portuguese and Spaniards with feudal forms of relations and Catholicism prevailing among them, then it is easy to understand why the Latinization of South and Central America led to different results than the colonization of the North. A different composition of the population (Indians, a huge number of African blacks, a not too large number of immigrants from Europe and, as a result, the predominance of mulattoes and mestizos), other traditions, a lower level of the starting point of development and a clear predominance of the traditional non-European path of development - both at the expense of the usual social genotype of Indians and blacks, and to a large extent due to significant elements of the same type of relations in the feudal traditions of settlers - ultimately led to the fact that the forms of social relations that developed in Latin America turned out to be hybrid. At the same time, it was not so much the ancient capitalist private property tendencies that were borrowed from the European model, oriented towards market relations and stimulating the initiative, energy of the individual, protecting his rights (as was the case in North America, and then in Australia, New Zealand, among the Boers), although at the same time, they deprive blacks and aborigines of the same rights as religious and feudal ones. The hybrid of European feudalism and Catholicism with Indian traditional forms of existence did not contribute to the vigorous pace of development, the development of the necessary labor skills, etc. In other words, the second version of colonization did not lead to the rapid development of the colony, but still contained the potential for some development, at least due to the presence of a share of the European private enterprise tradition, albeit small, but still existing and playing its role, going back to the ancient capitalist type of development.
Option three is the colonization of areas with unfavorable living conditions for Europeans. In these frequent cases, the local population, regardless of its size, was predominant. Europeans turned out to be only a small inclusion in it, as was the case everywhere in Africa, Indonesia, Oceania and some on the Asian continent (although we will talk about the developed East later). The weakness, or even the almost complete absence of political administration and statehood here helped the colonialists easily and with minimal losses not only to gain a foothold in foreign lands in the form of a system of outposts, ports, trading colonies and quarters, but also to take control of all local trade, and even and practically the entire economy of the surrounding areas and impose their will on local residents, sometimes entire countries, their principle of free market relations, in which material interest played a decisive role. Over time, but not too quickly, this form of colonialism could develop into another, taking on the form of political domination.
And finally, option four, the most typical for the East. These are the ones
numerous cases when colonialists found themselves in countries with a developed, centuries-old culture and a rich tradition of statehood. Various circumstances played a big role here: Europeans’ ideas about the wealth of a particular Eastern country, for example India, and the real strength of the colonized country, i.e., the strength of its state power, and the traditional forms of a particular Eastern civilization with their norms and principles, and much more, including an incident that has always played an important role in history. All of this will be discussed in detail ahead. In the meantime, it is worth noting that the British were able to strengthen themselves and take control of India to a large extent because this was facilitated by the historically established socio-political system of this country with its weak political power. But, while certain countries of the East in question had not yet become politically subordinate to the metropolis (which should be dated only to the 19th century), it should be considered characteristic of the fourth version of colonization that the colonialists in such countries were a minority that acted in conditions a fairly developed colonized society, governed by local rulers and living according to its own rules.
As part of the fourth option, the colonialists could neither create a structure according to the European model (as in the first), nor create a hybrid structure (as in the second), nor simply crush with their power and direct the life of the backward local population entirely along the desired path, as was the case in Africa , on the spice islands, etc. (option three). Here it was only possible to actively develop trade and gain benefits through market exchange. But at the same time - which is very significant - Europeans, with rare exceptions, had to pay in cash, gold and silver. Although European weapons and something else were also accepted as payment, the eastern market nevertheless did not need those goods that Europeans before the 19th century. could have offered him. Needed cash. And here is the time to limit the presentation of the problem of colonization and colonialism in the broad sense of the word (as a great global phenomenon associated with the process of the genesis of capitalism, which was in a sense the territorial basis of its nurturing and maturation) and turn to colonialism in the narrow, so to speak, in the proper sense of the word - in the same sense as it sounds everywhere today and has an almost unambiguous negative assessment.
Colonialism in the East
Specifically, we will now talk about what colonialism is from the point of view of the peoples who were colonized. This, of course, also applies to those Aboriginal people who were the object of displacement from their lands, destruction and subjugation by colonists in cases related to the first and second variants of colonization (America, Australia, New Zealand, etc.). But this mainly concerns the third and especially the fourth variants of colonization, i.e. those cases when we are not talking about mass migrations and the development of sparsely populated lands by a new community, but about the unceremonious invasion of a selfish and power-based minority in order to benefit from market exchange and force the local population to work for themselves, not to mention such inhuman phenomena as the slave trade. Let us again make a reservation that transit trade with the pursuit of profit, and the exploitation of the local population, and the slave trade were not invented by the European colonialists. All this existed earlier, before them and independently of them. Sometimes the captured Europeans themselves were traded, becoming slaves of the Turks or Arabs, Mongols or Persians. Therefore, we mean only a characteristic of the phenomenon associated with the emergence of early capitalist Europe, whose representatives in the countries that served as objects of colonial expansion acted essentially using traditional methods, but with the energy and determination inherent in the new, rising capitalist system. This is what became colonialism in the now familiar meaning of the word, at least at the initial stage.
The initial stage, as mentioned, was associated with the activities primarily of the Portuguese (there were practically no Spaniards in the East, with the exception of the Philippines; the Philippines developed largely according to the Latin American model, as already mentioned), and in quantitative terms this activity was barely related or not primarily with the African slave trade, although the Portuguese were simultaneously actively interested in spices and rarities and it was they who owned the first European trading posts in India, Indonesia, Ceylon, the Chinese coast, etc. Portuguese colonialism in Africa and Asia (unlike America ) was trade in nature (the third and fourth variants of colonization), which, in fact, to a large extent determined over time the Afro-Asian variants of European colonization until the 19th century. But trade with the East, even with Africa (where glass beads and cheap rags, not to mention alcohol, were often used as equivalent exchange) required funds. Spices were expensive, their delivery was even more expensive. Even guns, which were exchanged for goods instead of silver, also cost money, the same silver. Where could you get the precious metal?
This question would not be worth raising - the answer to it is generally known. Actually, it was gold and silver that caused such greed among the Spanish-Portuguese conquistadors in America, which served as the impetus for the complete destruction of the ancient centers of a rich, but structurally weak civilization and statehood. Streams of gold and silver poured into Europe from the time of Columbus - and to a large extent due to this, taking into account the decrease in the price of the precious metal in the conditions of a sharp increase in its quantity (price revolution), early European trade with the East was financed, which Europeans could not plunder even for goods which, including slaves, they were forced to pay. And although the share of the Portuguese in this American flow was not very large - the main part went to Spain - it served as the initial basis for financing colonial trade, which subsequently successfully developed through trade turnover.
The century of Portuguese domination in colonial Afro-Asian trade was relatively short-lived: Portugal’s share in the ever-increasing volume and territorial expansion of European colonialists in Africa and especially in Asia fell rapidly even after the 16th century. became completely insignificant. The Dutch came out on top. The 17th century, especially its first half, is the century of the Netherlands in the East. From the second half of the 17th century, after a series of successful Anglo-Dutch wars, England became close to Holland, gradually pushing it aside.
Although the Dutch were in the forefront among those European powers that successfully followed the path of capitalist development, and although it was they who at one time actively participated in the colonization of North America with its Puritan spirit of active entrepreneurship (it is enough to recall that the Dutch founded the city in 1626). New Amsterdam - future New York), in Africa and Asia they replaced the Portuguese or found themselves next to them in almost the same function as colonial traders. And their methods were not too different from the Portuguese - the same trade in African and Indonesian slaves, buying spices, organizing plantations for their production. True, the Dutch contributed to the renewal of colonialism by founding in 1602 the united East India Company - a powerful administrative-economic super-organization under the political patronage of the metropolis, the purpose of which was to optimize the conditions for the successful exploitation of all Dutch colonies in the East (in 1621 for the Dutch colonies in In the West, mainly in America, the West India Company was created). A similar organization (East India Company) was created by the British, even earlier, in 1600, but only in the second half of the 17th century, after the British strengthened in a number of important points on the east and west coasts of India, did this company gain a certain economic stability and, most importantly, some administrative rights - their own armed forces and the ability to conduct military operations, even mint coins. Subsequently, as already mentioned, the English
The East India Company became the administrative backbone of English colonialism in India, and from the 18th century. it was increasingly controlled by the government and parliament, and in 1858 it ceased to exist altogether, officially replaced by representatives of England, starting with the Viceroy.
Using the example of the Dutch and English East India Companies, one can see that at least in the 17th century. these were trade organizations of a capitalist nature with limited administrative rights1. Practice has shown that this kind of rights was quite enough for the British in India and the Dutch in Indonesia to feel like actual masters. France was less successful in this regard, having embarked on the path of colonial expansion later, mainly only in the 18th century. In addition, the revolution of 1789 contributed to the collapse of what had been achieved: the French were forced out of some of their colonial possessions, primarily by the British (in India, America). In general, the 17th and 18th centuries were a period of active strengthening of European colonial trade and the receipt of considerable economic benefits through this trade.
What benefits are we talking about in light of what has already been said about the peculiarities of colonial trade with the East, expressed in the pumping of precious metal not from the East to Europe, but in the opposite direction? The benefits we mean are the simplest and most direct - from trade turnover, taking into account all the costs of not only the long transit sea route, but also the maintenance of the administration of the same powerful companies that organized trade and stabilized the conditions for it, seizing new lands into their hands, bribing allied rulers, waging wars with hostile ones, etc. If you calculate the costs, they will turn out to be very substantial. But the difference in prices was huge: spices in Europe were tens of times more expensive compared to the places where they were produced and purchased. And yet, if we draw a balance (and in the end they traded not only spices; besides, the merchants themselves strictly limited them both in production and in trade, so as not to bring down the price), it turns out that wool and paper came from India high quality fabrics, Kashmir shawls, indigo, sugar, even opium. From Africa - slaves. And what came in return? Weapons and, to a much lesser extent, some other goods that had virtually no demand in developed (and even more so in undeveloped) countries of the East. The maintenance of companies and all other costs, payments, bribes, etc. were covered to a large extent by precious metal: according to some estimates, at the beginning of the 18th century. the share of goods in trade with the East (English exports east of the Cape of Good Hope) was one fifth, the remaining four fifths were metal.
This does not mean that the companies and colonial trade operated at a loss - they returned theirs with interest, because their trade was the most profitable business. But still, it was just trade, and not robbery like what the Spanish-Portuguese conquistadors did in America. And although the colonial trade was accompanied by cruelty and abuse of people (the slave trade), this was not the main thing. The East has long been accustomed to cruelty and the slave trade. European merchants were fundamentally different from local eastern merchants in that, with the active support of the metropolis, they sought to administratively organize and strengthen themselves, constantly expanding their zone of influence and freedom of action. Actually, it was precisely this kind of dynamics that served as an important basis for the gradual transformation of colonial trade into colonial expansion of a political-economic nature, which was felt in some places (especially in India) already in the 18th century. and began to manifest itself with particular force in the East in the 19th century.
So, in the traditional East, including Africa, colonialism began with colonial trade, and this period of trade expansion, accompanied only in its final part by the seizure of territories in a number of areas, lasted quite a long time.
1 The restrictions are spoken of in a very relative sense - the right to wage war and maintain armies placed companies in the position of a powerful political force, quite comparable to local government entities; the only question was the specific balance of forces and the availability of means for manipulation.
During these centuries, XVI–XVIII, a lot has changed. First of all, Europe itself has changed. Colonial robbery (meaning America) noticeably enriched it, laying the foundation for the primitive accumulation of capital. Capital was put into circulation on a large scale in transit colonial trade, which contributed to the formation of the world market and the involvement of all countries in this market. Income from turnover and the creation of a market played a role in accelerating the pace of capitalist development in Europe, and this development, primarily and most actively in England, in turn urgently required an even greater market capacity and an increase in trade turnover, including colonial trade. To ensure optimal trading conditions, the British, earlier than others and more successfully than their Dutch rivals, began to strengthen themselves in the East (primarily in India), achieving their political dominance there already in the 18th century. and even more so in the 19th century. The relationship between capitalism and colonialism is obvious. But was the same type of connection typical for objects of colonial expansion, for the countries of the East? At least for some? The question comes close to the problem of the genesis of capitalism in the East. Until relatively recently, a considerable number of Marxists insisted that at the time being described, i.e., in the 16th–18th centuries, the East stood on the eve of a process of this kind of genesis, or was even already in the course of this process, that it was only slightly behind in this from Europe. And even today such views have not disappeared completely, although they have noticeably diminished. And, it would seem, there are reasons for them - after all, capitalism arose in Japan! Therefore, in principle, something similar could happen in the East, and the only question is to try to understand why this did not happen in other countries, what exactly prevented it from happening. We will return to a more thorough analysis of all the problems associated with the genesis of capitalism in the East later. For now let's pay attention to this; which has already been mentioned more than once in this chapter. The East, represented by developed civilized societies and states of Asia (there is no talk of Africa yet) was in the 16th–18th centuries. no poorer than Europe. Moreover, he was richer. Precious metals exported from plundered America went to the East. In the East, for centuries, the very values and rarities that attracted the greedy eyes of the colonialists were accumulated and stored. The East also had its own trade, rich in traditions, including transit, which, by the way, controlled the entire eastern trade of Europe until the era of colonialism and profited a lot from it. The East, according to many studies, could provide a greater mass of food than the meager soils of Europe, and the population of the East for the most part lived hardly worse than the European population. In short, according to experts, until the 15th–16th centuries. The East was richer and better equipped, not to mention the high level of its culture.
But if all this was exactly so, and besides, the East seemed to be on the eve or already in the process of the genesis of capitalism, then why wasn’t capitalism actively developing in the East? And if for some reason this very eastern capitalism did not keep up with developing quickly enough, in a European way, then why didn’t colonialism help this - the very colonial trade that connected Europe and the rest of the world, including the entire East, together? Of course, trade was in the hands of Europeans and therefore brought income from turnover to them. But, as just said, the East was richer and did not become poorer in the course of trade, because it shared its surplus for money. And, besides, colonial trade is important not only and, perhaps, not so much for income, but for the very fact of worldwide connections, the possibility of borrowing and accelerating development through this. Why did she manage to take advantage of this opportunity – and to what extent! – only Japan, while the rest couldn’t take advantage of it? Or didn't you want to? Or didn’t they even notice it, this opportunity, didn’t pay attention to it? Why?
The answer to this question is obvious in the light of the concept set out in the work: capitalism as a fundamentally different system, rejecting the traditional dominance of the state and putting forward private property and the free market as an alternative, was out of the question in the traditional East. There were no conditions for this. And only in the unique circumstances of Japan did such conditions appear, and even then not immediately. It is worth recalling that, despite the Japanese being ideally prepared for this
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More and more often, both from representatives of the bourgeoisie and its accomplices, and from our still unconscious comrades who have fallen into the net of bourgeois propaganda, we hear speeches that all the economic and social problems in Russia are not at all due to capitalism, not because of that a socio-economic formation in which the exploitation of man by man is considered the norm, but because we now have “undercapitalism” instead of full-fledged, correct capitalism “like in the West.” Adherents of this opinion, based on the most mediocre myths of bourgeois propaganda, express confidence that communism in general and in its first phase - socialism - in particular contradicts itself, that only “correct” capitalism is capable of ensuring real equality of opportunity, fair competition and the benefits of life available to everyone. Of course, such an approach has nothing to do with objective reality, which is what we are going to prove in this article from the perspective of Marxism.
Conventionally, all supporters of the existence of some kind of special “wrong” capitalism in Russia can be divided into two parts, based on the arguments they provide.
First part provides the following arguments as evidence:
— in Russia there is no market in the usual sense of the word, since all its manifestations are immediately nationalized or suppressed by all kinds of norms and GOSTs;
— monopolies, which occupy the main share of the economy in the Russian Federation, are uncharacteristic of “correct Western” capitalism;
— “correct” capitalism completely excludes statism, which is the main reason for the formation of monopolies, which is why there is now state capitalism in Russia;
- “correct” capitalism was able to provide even the poorest segments of the population with the necessary benefits of civilization, while in countries with “wrong” capitalism, all material wealth was seized by the corrupt “elite”;
— “correct Western” capitalism is distinguished by the absence of “communist experiments” in the past;
— deindustrialization, characteristic of “Russian” capitalism, is not a problem of “Western” capitalism, because we now live in a post-industrial society.
It is not difficult to notice that the first part of the adherents of this concept of the development of capitalism do not proceed in their evidence from the standpoint of Marxism - they proceed from ardent anti-Marxist positions, completely denying the elements of Marxism that characterize the capitalist mode of production.
The second part supporters of the existence of a “non-capitalist” Russia admits in its arguments certain elements of Marxism that describe capitalism, but emphasizes that the current Russian system does not correspond to the capitalism described by Marx.
The following theses are used as evidence:
— the economy of the Russian Federation is mainly based on raw materials, which allows the owners of mining enterprises to receive their main income not from the surplus value created by hired workers, but from the sale of almost unprocessed raw materials that generate rent;
— one of the main forms of profit for capitalists in Russia is trade and speculation, and not wage labor.
Let's look at each statement in order. So, let's start with the situation related to the absence in Russia of a “healthy” market with truly free competition. To prove that this is by no means a problem of the “wrong Russian” capitalism invented by bourgeois figures with liberal views, let us turn to its Marxist understanding. In its development, capitalism goes through the following stages:
- initial accumulation of capital, when a transition occurs from simple commodity production to capitalist production through the transformation of labor power into goods and the means of production into capital;
- free competition, the existence of which inevitably leads to the concentration of capital and the creation of monopolies;
- imperialism or monopoly capitalism is the last, final stage of the development of capitalism, which creates the conditions for the proletarian revolution.
That is lack of free competition in Russia there is not that very distinctive feature of “Russian” capitalism from “Western” - this is only one of its stages development. “But then it follows that in the “West” capitalism has stopped developing at the stage of free competition, because we all know that, for example, in the USA or Germany everyone can open “their own business” and live happily.”, - the dissenters will object. This is not at all true, because at the stage of imperialism the large monopolies will contribute to the increasingly proletarianization of the petty bourgeoisie, which is no longer able to compete with huge enterprises.
Let us examine the following position, which follows from the previous one, - monopolies occupying the main share of the Russian economy are not typical for “correct Western” capitalism. As noted above, monopolism or imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. At this stage, the concentration of capital occurs, the percentage of hired workers to the total population increases due to the impossibility of competition between the petty and middle bourgeoisie and monopolies, and the mechanism of monopoly prices is used to redistribute profits into the hands of monopolists. Under imperialism, the big bourgeoisie actually controls the economy of any bourgeois state, which is what happens in the countries of “correct Western” capitalism.
USA, UK, Germany, France and other "first world" countries are now imperialist states, in which the economic and political life of society is controlled by large monopolies in the same way as in modern Russia. But imperialism is not static. Monopolies, destroying free competition, enter into struggle among themselves, creating crises that are the reasons for the “rollback” of imperialism to classical capitalism, which through competition again turns into a monopoly, imperialism.
Statism is the reason for the formation of monopolies, therefore it is not typical for countries following the path of “correct” capitalist development, but in Russia there is state capitalism- another argument in which all the main meanings are completely confused. We have already figured out that monopolies are by no means uncharacteristic elements of capitalist countries that have entered the stage of imperialism, therefore it is a gross mistake to assert that statism in the economy is the reason for the formation of monopolies. It is important to understand here that state capitalism is in no way equal to state-monopoly capitalism - the form that imperialism acquires in the process of its development to maintain the power of capital in conditions of its crisis.
It is monopolization that is the reason for the combination of the financial oligarchy, represented by monopolies, and the state apparatus, and not vice versa, as representatives of the bourgeoisie and its supporters claim, citing the works of Murray Rothbard and other prominent representatives of libertarianism. The basis of state capitalism is precisely the insufficient accumulation of capital, which is a sign of the early stage of development of capitalism. State intervention in this case is intended to speed up the process of development of capitalism. But one should not confuse either state capitalism in the early stages of the development of capitalist society, or state-monopoly capitalism with the state-capitalist monopoly described by Lenin, which is a transitional form from capitalism to socialism.
Following The sparkling statement of the liberal-minded bourgeoisie is that the “correctness” of “Western” capitalism lies in high consumer capacity of all segments of the population. In Russia, as in other countries of “wrong” capitalism, the flourishing of the consumer paradise is prevented by the corrupt “elite”. Is it worth saying that consumer ability is not a criterion for the development of society? Perhaps individuals with a petty-bourgeois consciousness are characterized by a “sausage” logic, which puts the priority on measuring cars, iPhones and the number of oysters eaten for lunch, but a truly progressive person will not determine social development by varieties of sausages and brands of cars.
But this is not even about this - have the supporters of “correct” capitalism never asked the question Why is life in countries of the “Western” type of capitalism good even among the proletariat?
To find the answer to this question, it is enough to look at the situation of the absolute majority of residents of the “third world” countries, where the “correct” capitalist states have kindly transferred their main production. By giving the rights of the root cause of the poor life of the starving population of countries with “wrong” capitalism to the corruption of the ruling “elite,” the great bourgeois analysts are only admitting to their illiteracy. This idea has nothing to do with objective reality, because corruption cannot in any way be the cause of “wrong” capitalism, but it can and is a consequence of the capitalist system itself.
In the Marxist understanding corruption can be called a method for the bourgeoisie to achieve its economic interests, which violates bourgeois legislation. Bourgeois laws are passed to suppress the exploited class. Under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie state power is concentrated in the hands of the capitalist class, whose representatives interpret their laws as they want. Corrupt government is just another vice of an outdated socio-economic formation, which is not a marker of the “correctness” or “wrongness” of capitalism, but is inherent in absolutely all capitalist states.
Let's consider another case of blatant illiteracy and lies: “correct” capitalism is distinguished by the absence of “communist experiments” in the past. Surely in the petty-bourgeois consciousness of liberals and libertarians there is no place for concerns about the lives of the absolute majority of the population, who do not own the means of production and are therefore forced to sell their labor for pennies, which is why they forgot that until the victory of the revolution in Russia the working class in absolutely all countries of “correct” capitalism was in a position not very different from the position of slaves under the slave system. It was the fear of a worldwide socialist revolution in the 20th century that forced the capitalists to make concessions to the proletariat.
And of course, how could we live without fairy tales about “post-industrial society” inherent in “Western” capitalism, dominated by the service sector- just the icing on the cake. A decrease in the share of the proletariat and an increase in the share of “post-industrial” slackers in the countries of “correct” capitalism is achieved through the same transfer of production to countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America with “wrong” capitalism. Workers in these countries only in their dreams see the consumer paradise of the “post-industrial society”, but in reality they work in inhumane conditions for pennies, so that later some “post-industrial” manager from his smartphone tells everyone stories about the “correct” capitalism and what is not there is no surplus value.
Let's talk about the second part of the adherents of the division of capitalism described at the beginning. "correct European" And "wrong Russian". As noted earlier, these supporters of myths and delusions do not neglect the Marxist understanding of capitalism, but this does not make their statements objective. Let's look at a few of their statements.
Since the economy of the Russian Federation is mainly based on raw materials, most of the income for Russian capitalists comes not from the surplus value created by hired workers, but from the rent arising from the sale of practically unprocessed raw materials. Extraction of raw materials is a production that covers several industries at once (extraction itself, processing, transportation, etc.) It is incorrect to say that oil and gas themselves, being in the depths, have some kind of value - they acquire it after some work has been done manipulation with them. The oil and gas sector and related industries employ a colossal number of hired workers who create surplus value for Russian capitalists. Without their labor, Russian capitalists would not be able to sell a barrel of oil or a cubic meter of gas.
The following statement: One of the main forms of profit for capitalists in Russia is trade and speculation, and not wage labor. This method of generating income was characteristic of the 90s, during the period of initial accumulation of capital, when, after the victory of the reaction, Russian capitalism was just beginning its development. Existing under pressure from European and American imperialism, “young” Russian capitalism, plundering socialist property, established itself using the most vile methods. During the period of total sharp deindustrialization, wage labor really did not bring the largest part of the profit. However, since the 2000s, Russian capitalism has entered the stage of imperialism and state-monopoly capitalism, and the main source of its income is precisely the surplus value obtained by using hired labor.
As could be seen, Almost all the evidence of supporters of the myth about the existence of “right” and “wrong” capitalism is based on the same myths that in no way correspond to reality. It is important for communists and all progressively minded conscious workers to understand that no “correct” capitalism will give them liberation from the yoke of capital, because there is no “right” or “wrong” capitalism.
Even those wage workers who live well in the imperialist countries of North America and Europe are still exploited by the capitalists; they must also understand that their comrades in the Third World are experiencing all the worst horrors of capitalist exploitation.
It is necessary to understand that only communism can ensure true equality of all members of society, that only it will destroy exploitation and lead us to a world where “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”