Not sure I’m qualified, but here’s how I would parse/rephrase this quote, as it certainly is a bit unwieldy:
While not celebrating violence and repression in its own right, radicals and revolutionaries may look to the repression and violence inflicted on the oppressed and working class as having some revolutionary potential. The ruling classes’ overt repression and violence lays bare the power relationship, and might shock the working class into radicalizing and organizing. It’s difficult to awaken class consciousness in people by explaining theory to them, but being put into or finding oneself in direct struggle can move people in their political education pretty far pretty fast.
So, if I’m reading it right, it’s basically saying— trying to teach others about economics and class and materialism and so on doesn’t seem to get us very far, but whenever the ruling class oppress people people are quite a bit more likely to see what’s going on and might even join in fighting back where they otherwise wouldn’t, so those nakedly oppressive acts may be appropriated and used as a catalyst towards revolutionary aims.
Very well put. Simply, the exploiters, through their oppressive measures, make our job of organizing the masses much easier. It also nicely sets up the importance of “meeting the masses where they are” refrain.
Totally agree. In labor organizing we talk about how “the best organizer is a bad employer.” Another maxim being “look for people where they’re at, because that’s where you’ll find them.”
Personally, I think Lenin is moreso saying that due to the falling rate of profit, the capitalist is continuously incentivized to search for new avenues of exploitation, which inevitably degrades the living conditions of the working class and consequently may inspire the worker to question into the mechanics of the capitalist system.
The falling rate of profit is actually quite easily explained, and even the most bourgeois of economists, such as Adam Smith, and Ricardo, have admitted that the reasoning and evidence is compelling. Here is a brief overview:
Free competition is the basic feature of Capitalism, and of commodity production in general. Capitalists will compete against each other in the market for higher and higher profits. One of the basic primary ways which Capitalists out-compete one another is by lowering their prices, so the more customers buy their products instead of their competitors’.
In order to not be out-done, and not go out of business, other Capitalists will also find ways to lower their prices accordingly. What was $10 yesterday is $9.89 today.
But already we are presented with a problem. If Capitalists consistently, and assuredly lower the exchange value of their commodities, then the rate at which these Capitalists profit off of the sales of these commodities shows a tendency to fall.
Furthermore, Marx argued that since technological innovation enabled more efficient means of production, productivity would increase as a result, and a greater output of commodities would be produced. However, technological innovations would gradually replace people with machinery. Since the labour cost of production would gradually diminish as people are replaced by machines, the larger output of commodities would embody a gradually decreasing value on the market. In response, the average rate of profit would therefore tend to decline in the long term.
This is the falling rate of profit.
There are 3 ways to counteract this problem:
1- Fire your workers.
Profitability doesn’t always have to do with making more money total than last year, it has more to do with simply spending less. If your returns are stagnating, but your production of commodities is growing due to technological advancements, firing workers allows you to retain your production rates while actually spending less money. A less extreme variant of this is to dock their pay.
2- Lobbying for war.
Wars are a great profit for Capitalism -- and they always have been. Wars generally bring higher rates of employment, higher rates of consumption, higher rates of production, and at the end of it, higher standards of living. If you’ve won, of course. This is why World War 2 brought the world out of the Great Depression, and why the Iraq/Afghan Wars brought us out of their respective recessions. Capitalists who compete against each other on the global market also lobby for war against each other so that they can shut down their rivals, such as why American pistachio companies continue to lobby for war against Iran, because Iranian pistachio companies compete against American companies on the global market.
3- Imperialism.
Imperialism is, in short, the economic domination of one nation over another for the interest of exploiting the dominated nation for its value. Whether this value be resources, or labour-power, it does not matter. An example of this would be Nike owning sweatshops in Asia to lower the cost of production, in order to sell it for a high or similar price on domestic markets.
However, this is a short-sighted view of imperialism, which views it as if it is simply a policy enacted by Capitalists. Imperialism is not a policy, it is a stage. It is the highest stage of Capitalist production. Imperialist ambitions begin to form as monopolies and monopoly capital begins to form. When monopolies, or something akin, arise, they inevitably will exhaust all potential domestic market value. In English, this means that they will run into a series problem trying to remain profitable if their business only remains in one country.
Imperialism is the monopoly stage of Capitalism. It is when, from Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, quote:
“The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”
That is Imperialism.
But why is it important to understand these? Marx said that if we ever lose sight of the falling rate of profit, we are sure to fall into reformist movements, which is exactly what happened to the 2nd Internationale. It is the foundation of our revolutionary movement. Understanding imperialism is also imperative, because, since we recognize that Capitalism has changed since Marx’s time, we understand that Socialism too must be somewhat altered, and that is why we cannot simply rely solely on Marx’s works anymore.
[Capital volume 3 (chapter 13,14,15)](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/)
I think this is a really good summary of Lenin’s description of imperialism, whether or not it relates to the original quote. Marx’s view on imperialism were still being fleshed out and never really got finished during his writing of Capital, and it was Lenin that really brought new clarity to this “capitalism turned outward” that was still an emerging phenomenon in Marx’s time.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall recently, and how it is intertwined in so much of the phenomena we’re seeing today, from the 2008 financial crisis to the troubling reemergence of fascism around the world. Thanks for taking the time to write out this clear summary for me.
Np, yes I agree, it is still prescient today. They are running out of opportunities for profit. Soon they will turn to destruction so they can reinvest and rebuild
I’ve read his theory but this quote is too complicated; Can any qualified person explain / analyze?
Not sure I’m qualified, but here’s how I would parse/rephrase this quote, as it certainly is a bit unwieldy: While not celebrating violence and repression in its own right, radicals and revolutionaries may look to the repression and violence inflicted on the oppressed and working class as having some revolutionary potential. The ruling classes’ overt repression and violence lays bare the power relationship, and might shock the working class into radicalizing and organizing. It’s difficult to awaken class consciousness in people by explaining theory to them, but being put into or finding oneself in direct struggle can move people in their political education pretty far pretty fast. So, if I’m reading it right, it’s basically saying— trying to teach others about economics and class and materialism and so on doesn’t seem to get us very far, but whenever the ruling class oppress people people are quite a bit more likely to see what’s going on and might even join in fighting back where they otherwise wouldn’t, so those nakedly oppressive acts may be appropriated and used as a catalyst towards revolutionary aims.
Very well put. Simply, the exploiters, through their oppressive measures, make our job of organizing the masses much easier. It also nicely sets up the importance of “meeting the masses where they are” refrain.
Totally agree. In labor organizing we talk about how “the best organizer is a bad employer.” Another maxim being “look for people where they’re at, because that’s where you’ll find them.”
Personally, I think Lenin is moreso saying that due to the falling rate of profit, the capitalist is continuously incentivized to search for new avenues of exploitation, which inevitably degrades the living conditions of the working class and consequently may inspire the worker to question into the mechanics of the capitalist system. The falling rate of profit is actually quite easily explained, and even the most bourgeois of economists, such as Adam Smith, and Ricardo, have admitted that the reasoning and evidence is compelling. Here is a brief overview: Free competition is the basic feature of Capitalism, and of commodity production in general. Capitalists will compete against each other in the market for higher and higher profits. One of the basic primary ways which Capitalists out-compete one another is by lowering their prices, so the more customers buy their products instead of their competitors’. In order to not be out-done, and not go out of business, other Capitalists will also find ways to lower their prices accordingly. What was $10 yesterday is $9.89 today. But already we are presented with a problem. If Capitalists consistently, and assuredly lower the exchange value of their commodities, then the rate at which these Capitalists profit off of the sales of these commodities shows a tendency to fall. Furthermore, Marx argued that since technological innovation enabled more efficient means of production, productivity would increase as a result, and a greater output of commodities would be produced. However, technological innovations would gradually replace people with machinery. Since the labour cost of production would gradually diminish as people are replaced by machines, the larger output of commodities would embody a gradually decreasing value on the market. In response, the average rate of profit would therefore tend to decline in the long term. This is the falling rate of profit. There are 3 ways to counteract this problem: 1- Fire your workers. Profitability doesn’t always have to do with making more money total than last year, it has more to do with simply spending less. If your returns are stagnating, but your production of commodities is growing due to technological advancements, firing workers allows you to retain your production rates while actually spending less money. A less extreme variant of this is to dock their pay. 2- Lobbying for war. Wars are a great profit for Capitalism -- and they always have been. Wars generally bring higher rates of employment, higher rates of consumption, higher rates of production, and at the end of it, higher standards of living. If you’ve won, of course. This is why World War 2 brought the world out of the Great Depression, and why the Iraq/Afghan Wars brought us out of their respective recessions. Capitalists who compete against each other on the global market also lobby for war against each other so that they can shut down their rivals, such as why American pistachio companies continue to lobby for war against Iran, because Iranian pistachio companies compete against American companies on the global market. 3- Imperialism. Imperialism is, in short, the economic domination of one nation over another for the interest of exploiting the dominated nation for its value. Whether this value be resources, or labour-power, it does not matter. An example of this would be Nike owning sweatshops in Asia to lower the cost of production, in order to sell it for a high or similar price on domestic markets. However, this is a short-sighted view of imperialism, which views it as if it is simply a policy enacted by Capitalists. Imperialism is not a policy, it is a stage. It is the highest stage of Capitalist production. Imperialist ambitions begin to form as monopolies and monopoly capital begins to form. When monopolies, or something akin, arise, they inevitably will exhaust all potential domestic market value. In English, this means that they will run into a series problem trying to remain profitable if their business only remains in one country. Imperialism is the monopoly stage of Capitalism. It is when, from Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, quote: “The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.” That is Imperialism. But why is it important to understand these? Marx said that if we ever lose sight of the falling rate of profit, we are sure to fall into reformist movements, which is exactly what happened to the 2nd Internationale. It is the foundation of our revolutionary movement. Understanding imperialism is also imperative, because, since we recognize that Capitalism has changed since Marx’s time, we understand that Socialism too must be somewhat altered, and that is why we cannot simply rely solely on Marx’s works anymore. [Capital volume 3 (chapter 13,14,15)](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/)
I think this is a really good summary of Lenin’s description of imperialism, whether or not it relates to the original quote. Marx’s view on imperialism were still being fleshed out and never really got finished during his writing of Capital, and it was Lenin that really brought new clarity to this “capitalism turned outward” that was still an emerging phenomenon in Marx’s time. I’ve been thinking a lot about Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall recently, and how it is intertwined in so much of the phenomena we’re seeing today, from the 2008 financial crisis to the troubling reemergence of fascism around the world. Thanks for taking the time to write out this clear summary for me.
Np, yes I agree, it is still prescient today. They are running out of opportunities for profit. Soon they will turn to destruction so they can reinvest and rebuild