The theory and practice of the Socialist Workers Party - a critical assessment - Part IV
"Callinicos’s stance is limited to opposing a timeless abstraction defined as American imperialism. So he glosses over the important structural connections between American imperialism and the transnational corporations. Instead America is seen as a nation of reactionary geopolitical values and envisaged by Callinicos as the political antagonist of the people of the world"
By Phil Sharpe
Alex Callinicos defines imperialism in a manner which he holds to be compatible with the traditional Leninist theory of imperialism. He maintains that despite the increasing internationalisation of production there is still a predominantly national basis to economic development, and this is upheld by the role of the nation state. This explains the continuation of inter-imperialist rivalry:
"Although the pronounced tendency towards the global integration of capital over the past generation has severely reduced the ability of states to control economic activities within their borders, private capitals continue to rely on the nation state to which they are most closely attached to protect them against the competition of other capitals, the effects of economic crisis and the resistance of those they exploit." 1
In this context, we can understand economic and political tensions and rivalries between USA imperialism with Germany and Japan, and countries like Russia are also potential imperialist contenders. 2
John Rees, who plays a leading role in the Stop the War Coalition on behalf of the Socialist Workers Party, refines and elaborates this conception. He contends that the international development of the productive forces can only be understood in the context of competition between nation states and rival trading blocs:
"Since capital can only exist as many competing capitals, it still needs a state that can try to stand above the fray and attempt to regulate competition. The move to international capital does not dispense with this requirement, but raises it to the level of conflict between states and trading blocs." 3
What is significant about these definitions of imperialism, is that they are very much based upon geopolitical considerations connected to the important role of the nation state as a protector of national capital. What is missing is an indicator of what is the structural content of economic development. This criteria is important, because it will help to show what has possibly changed since the time of Lenin when the classical theory of imperialism was elaborated.
Lenin showed that the structural content of imperialism was based upon the role of monopoly capital and finance capital, or the merging of industrial and banking capital. Monopoly capital and finance capital tended to be nationally organised, and this was crucial in explaining imperialism because the nation state became a protector of the interests of its "own" national monopoly capital.
The recent globalisation of production and commerce is structurally dependent upon the role of transnational corporations, which are no longer based upon a particular nation state. This does not mean that the role of the nation state has become superfluous, or that inter-imperialist rivalries are transcended, but it does mean that economic development is no longer based upon rival trading and political empires that aim at the protection of the interests of monopoly capital. Instead, because of the growth of transnational corporations, capitalism has become a more integrated economic system. This is shown by the development of international financial institutions that express this global logic, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Given the transformation of national monopoly capital into transnational capital, it has been possible for the national political representatives of capital to co-operate in unprecedented terms, something that would have been inconceivable in the era of nationally organised and competitive monopoly capital. For it is in the interests of the transnationals that political co-operation and unity is created between the advanced capitalist countries in order to enhance the possibility of exploiting the labour of all countries. This does not mean that imperialism has turned into ultra-imperialism, bringing with it the possibility of a connected, peaceful and co-operative development of capitalism.
Instead the development of global capital represents a new phase in the imperialist stage of capitalism. For what is occurring is the intensification of the exploitation of the labour of those subordinated and dominated countries within the hierarchical levels of the world economy. Imperialism, therefore, remains an expression of a relation of exploitation and oppression of oppressed nations, despite the important gain of political independence in the period of colonial liberation. But the structural content of this imperialism is changing. It is no longer primarily based upon antagonistic and rival national monopoly capitals, but the standpoint of the transnational corporation.
Have the SWP modified their stance in the recent period? The short answer to this question is no. If anything the SWP has become more dogmatic about adhering to the "Leninist" theory of imperialism. In an article about the foreign policy of the Bush administration, Callinicos argues that the tendency towards unilateralism, or a go-it-alone stance, is connected to a geopolitical imperative for American imperialism to maintain its military superiority over rivals like Russia and China:
"Their world-historical perspective leads the Bush team to conclude that a window of opportunity has opened in which they can use the US’s present military superiority to improve the long-term position of US capitalism." 4 However, Callinicos then makes an eclectic qualification to this view, in that he concedes that US foreign policy does not just have this geopolitical aspect of consolidating hegemony over potential rivals, but it is also related to the requirements of globalisation:
"It is important, however, to see that the Bush administration’s grand strategy is aimed not simply at maintaining US geopolitical pre-eminence, but at imposing the Anglo-American model of free market capitalism on the world." 5 So, Callinicos glosses over any theoretical inconsistency between these two comments by reducing globalisation to an ideology or policy. In this manner he can equate globalisation with the exclusive interests of American foreign policy, and therefore tenuously maintain his geopolitical view about imperialism as essentially the rivalry between competing nation states.
How can we explain the inconsistency in Callinicos’s view? Empirically, he feels impelled to admit the significance of globalisation and the impact of the growing internationalisation of production and the circulation of money. But, theoretically and politically he has to reduce this empirical admission to the dogmatic views of the SWP about the primacy of inter-imperialist rivalry. Thus he still defines the present role of USA capital as nothing more than trying to maintain an increasingly precarious economic hegemony over inter-imperialist rivals:
"The US’s huge military lead over the other powers should not be allowed to conceal the fact that the economic contest, particularly with the EU, is much more evenly balanced. The implication is that the current US supremacy depends on a highly contingent and transitory set of circumstances. It is precisely for this reason that US administrations have had to fight hard to maintain their hegemony - first of Western capitalism, now on a global scale - over the past generation. The Bush administration is seizing advantage of the present conjuncture in order to shift the terms further in the favour of US capitalism". 6
But an important question cannot be answered by this essentially geopolitical analysis, which explains economic and politics in terms of the competition between rival nation states. This question is: what precisely is American imperialism upholding and defending? The answer to this question is the power and importance of the transnational corporation, which constitutes the structural basis of the increasingly interdependent world economy. In contrast, Callinicos’s answer amounts to an evasion and tautology, because what he is essentially suggesting is that competitive nation states protect the competitive character of capital. This answer does not tell us about the historical context and process of development of this competition.
The unarticulated assumption of Callinicos is that American imperialism, and the various rival imperialisms, are based upon nationally-organised monopoly capital and finance capital. But this assumption is antiquated, because it lags behind recent economic and structural development, which is based upon the evolution of monopoly capital into the transnational corporation. This does not mean that competition has been transcended, but rather competition is now between forms of capital that are not necessarily and organically connected to a national content. In this context, it is possible to consider that far from the national state being compatible with the present structural character of capitalist development, there is instead a contradiction between the nation state and the economic requirements of global capital.
In other words, the state is increasingly becoming an anachronism, or an ideological and political construct which contradicts the requirements of the highest economic trends of capitalist development. The state still acts to protect the interests of capital, but this is carried out in antiquated terms, which means the contradiction between ideological and political requirements and the role of the economic are not resolved. Instead this contradiction is intensified, and so the ideological and political interests of the nation state are in conflict with the requirements of national capital.
In order to try and resolve this contradiction, American imperialism has advocated the policy of unilateralism, to try and assert that the global interests of capital are best served by the military might of America. But this stance has only intensified the political and ideological contradictions between the advanced capitalist countries, because European countries, such as France and Germany, also maintain that they also uphold the interests of global capital. What seems on the surface an expression of renewed inter-imperialist rivalry, is actually a manifestation of the structural problem that the economic process of globalisation has in developing compatible political and ideological forms.
Callinicos contends that globalisation has not transcended the assertion of national interests, such as expressed by the unilateralism of American imperialist foreign policy. 7 The economic crisis of Germany and Japan in the 1990s helps to explain the resurgence of American imperialism as a power capable of imposing hegemonic and unilateral military action, he argues. Also Russia and China do not yet have the economic power to challenge America. 8
In this context, the Clinton era could be considered as a transitional era, because multilateral action at the level of the UN and NATO was increasingly replaced by unilateral action. This situation was reinforced by the advent of the Bush administration that was always committed to unilateralism. Since September 11th this stance was extended by the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strike against "rogue states". 9 Thus the Bush administration is committed ideologically to Reaganism, and its doctrine of the use of USA military power to suppress potential or actual rivals. 10 A tension has developed, therefore, between a Europe - with the main exception of the UK - committed to multilateral action and a Bush administration based on a commitment to its own unilateral military power. 11
This analysis shows that Callinicos has failed in his attempt to combine the "complex mixtures of economic and geopolitical reasons" for the actions of imperialist powers. 12 Instead what he has done is abstract out the importance of the geopolitical reasons for the unilateralism of American imperialism and then project or impose this descriptive analysis onto the process of economic causation Thereby he has constructed an idealist inverted relation between the geopolitical and the economic. The geopolitical becomes the basis for explaining the economic, rather than the economic being the basis for developing an analysis of the role of the geopolitical.
In contrast, the tensions between American unilateralism and European multilateralism only become consistently explanatory when this situation is connected to the political conflict between different states about how best to defend the interests of global capital. What is the best geopolitical policy that can best uphold the interests of transnational capital? At present, from the standpoint of capital, there does not seem to be any definite and definitive answer to this question, and so the result is political and ideological tensions between France, Germany and Russia with America and Britain. But in the last analysis this tension will not break out into fully fledged inter-imperialist rivalry, because the structural context is not that of competition between national monopoly capital. Instead it concerns the strategic question of how the nation state of the advanced capitalist countries can best advance the interests of transnational capital.
In relation to the situation in Iraq, Callinicos maintains that the immediate aim of the Bush administration is to show any other possible political antagonists that they will be dealt with punitively like Iraq. It is also strategically and economically important to realise USA’s economic control of Iraqi oil in the context of growing distrust between Saudi Arabia and America. 13 Control of Iraqi oil will advance both American imperialism’s economic and geopolitical interests against its European and Japanese rivals:
"Not only would this ease concerns about the US’s long term access to oil, it would also increase Washington’s leverage over allies and rivals such as Germany and Japan that are even more dependent than the US on imported oil. Once again we see how economic and geopolitical considerations are inextricably interwoven in the grand strategy of US imperialism." 14 Callinicos accepts that there is criticism of the Bush approach within the American ruling class, in that potential allies for coalition building are being alienated by the unilateralist approach. 15 However, despite the risks and problems, the strategy of the Bush administration is not irrational, because it is based on the need to use American military power in order to shift the global balance of power in its favour. 16
In order for this above viewpoint to have any credibility a situation would have to develop, in which the American government directly controlled the Iraqi oil fields, and on that basis control the level of supply to Europe and Japan. But this will not happen, not least because the direct economic role of the state is generally considered by the American government to be against the interests of capital. Instead an important aim of American unilateralism is to bring about control of the Iraqi oil fields by the transnational corporations because the present role of the Iraqi state is considered against the interests of global capital.
The strategic military tensions between America and Europe about unilateral or multilateral action against Iraq are, therefore, not an expression of inter-imperialist rivalries about who could nationally control Iraq’s oil. For the governments of both Europe and America are equally committed to realising a situation of enhancing the capacity of the transnationals to control the supply of Iraq’s oil. Consequently, a shared economic aim to realise the greater economic integration of Iraq into the global economy has led to strategic military and political differences between Europe and America about how to realise this aim.
Callinicos tries to defend his standpoint by suggesting that unilateralism is the best way to uphold the strategic interests of American imperialism against its rivals. But this contention lacks substance because the world economy is not dominated by nationally competing rival monopoly capital centres. Furthermore, if the world economy was still predominantly based upon rival monopoly capital, it would actually be irrational for American imperialism to rigidly pursue foreign policy objectives by unilateralist means that needlessly alienated allies and potential rivals.
America’s unilateralist foreign policy can only be conceived as rational if it is located in the context of strategic differences about what is the best policy to realise the interests of global capital. The American government is preparing to take the risks of renouncing multilateralism precisely because it regards this strategy as increasingly unable to decisively advance the interests of global capital. Consequently, the Bush administration regards the adherence to multilateralism and the UN by France and Germany as support for an ineffective policy that will not enhance the realisation of the objective of upholding the interests of global capital and the transnationals. The present tension between Europe and America is an expression of the fragmentation of the nation state system in relation to the growing economic interdependency of global capital.
Callinicos concludes by commenting that the Bush strategy has resulted in a diverse international opposition to the war drive against Iraq, and led to illusions in the role of Europe limiting the actions of America. 17 That is why the opposition to the war is heterogeneous, and some people have illusions in the UN and global capitalist values, but the logic is for increasing political radicalisation and the development of an anti-imperialist stance. It is necessary to develop a united front of these diverse political forces and provide a revolutionary anti-imperialist leadership, says Callinicos, adding:
"Part of the point of the united front tactic is to unite politically diverse forces in action around a limited common objective: within this united front it is the responsibility of revolutionary socialists both to try to make this struggle as militant as possible and to challenge the political illusions that still tie some of the participants to the ruling order. The political climate today, certainly in Britain, is one where, simultaneously, opposition to the war on Iraq is very broad, but it is the anti-imperialist wing of the movement that is making the running." 18
Callinicos formally tries to defend revolutionary politics, by opposing any support for Europe against America. In this context, he is trying to deny that the standpoint of the SWP also defends illusions in a progressive Europe against a reactionary America. However, the dogmatic, descriptive and one-sided geopolitical analysis of Callinicos, with its emphasis on the role of American unilateralism, is actually an ideological accommodation to the view that a left-wing capitalist class in Europe can be mobilised against a right-wing administration in America.
By contrast, if we locate the role of the Bush administration, and France and Germany, within the context of defending capital against the interests of labour, then we can develop a more principled internationalist and intransigent stance. On that basis the anti-imperialist necessity to oppose the war against Iraq is connected to the necessity to develop a strategy that facilitates the struggle of the world working class and peasantry against the interests and policies of the transnational corporations and global capital.
In comparison Callinicos’s stance is limited to opposing a timeless abstraction defined as American imperialism, and so he glosses over the important structural connections between American imperialism and the transnational corporations. Instead America, as a nation of reactionary geopolitical values is effectively envisaged by Callinicos as the political antagonist with the people of the world.
Callinicos maintains that his approach is based upon the united front, or mass mobilisation around limited and defensive demands which then can develop an anti-capitalist logic. But the conception of the united front, as developed by the early Third International and by Trotsky, was based upon the interaction of principled politics with the need for flexible tactics in relation to the question of mobilising the working class against capitalism.
The dogmatic conception of imperialism upheld by the SWP is not conducive to developing principled politics and providing revolutionary leadership of a united front. In fact, it more resembles the Popular Front developed by Stalinism in the 1930s, where alliances were made across the class spectrum with fatal political results. The SWP is defending lowest common denominator politics in order to try to organisationally obtain the maximum possible influence within a mass movement. Consequently, the SWP is actually opposed to developing the principled politics necessary to transform the anti-war movement into an expression of conscious opposition to both imperialism and capitalism.
Footnotes:
(1) Alex Callinicos: Marxism and Imperialism Today: in Marxism and the New Imperialism: Bookmarks: London: 1994 p54; (2) ibid: p55-61; (3) John Rees: The New Imperialism: in Marxism and the New Imperialism p104; (4) Alex Callinicos: The Grand Strategy of the American Empire in International Socialism Number 97, December 2002 p18; (5 )p19; (6) p22 (7) p3-4 (8) p6-7 (9) p8-12 (10) p12-13 (11) p15-18 (12) p5 ;(13) p22-26; (14) p27; (15) p28-30; (16) p30;(17) p31-32; (18) p33-34