Capitalism; Imperialism; Saving and investment; Socialism
process.
L. Bouding seems to come closer to the crucial point. In his brilliant
review on Tugan Baranovski he gives the following formulation: 'With a
single exception to be considered below, the existence of a surplus
product in capitalist countries does not put a spoke in the wheel of
production, not because production will be distributed more efficiently
among the various spheres, or because the manufacture of machinery will
replace that of cotton goods. The reason is rather that, capitalist
development having begun sooner in some countries than in others, and
because even to-day there are still some countries that have no
developed capitalism, the capitalist countries in truth have at their
disposal an outside market in which they can get rid of their products
which they cannot consume themselves, no matter whether these are cotton
or iron goods. We would by no means deny that it is significant if iron
goods replace cotton goods as the main products of the principal
capitalist countries. On the contrary, this change is of paramount
importance, but its implications are rather different from those
ascribed to it by Tugan Baranovski. It indicates the beginning of the
end of capitalism. So long as the capitalist countries exported
commodities for the purpose of consumption, there was still a hope for
capitalism in these countries, and the question did not arise how much
and how long the non-capitalist outside world would be able to absorb
capitalist commodities. The growing share of machinery at the cost of
consumer goods in what is exported from the main capitalist countries
shows that areas which were formerly free of capitalism, and therefore
served as a dumping-ground for its surplus products, are now drawn into
the whirlpool of capitalism. It shows that, since they are developing a
capitalism of their own, they can by themselves produce the consumer
goods they need. At present they still require machinery produced by
capitalist methods since they are only in the initial stages of
capitalist development. But all too soon they will need them no longer.
Just as they now make their own cotton and other consumer goods, they
will in future produce their own iron ware. Then they will not only
cease to absorb the surplus produce of the essentially capitalist
countries, but they will themselves produce surplus products which they
can place only with difficulty' (_Die Neue Zeit_, vol. xxv, part 1,
_Mathematische Formeln gegen Karl Marx_, p. 604). Bouding here broaches
an important aspect of the general relations pertaining to the
development of international capitalism. Further, as a logical
consequence, he comes to the question of imperialism but unfortunately
he finally puts the wrong kind of edge on his acute analysis by
considering the whole of militarist production together with the system
of exporting international capital to non-capitalist countries under the
heading of 'reckless expenditure'.--We must say in parenthesis that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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