for bourgeois and capitalist development at the system’s center and periphery through the polarizing effects produced by its imperialist nature. In other words, is the bourgeoisie in the peripheries necessarily forced to submit to the requirements of this unequal development? Is it, consequently, necessarily comprador by nature? Does the capitalist path, in these conditions, necessarily lead to an impasse? Or does the margin of maneuver from which the bourgeoisie can benefit in certain circumstances (which must be specified) allow it to pursue an autonomous national capitalist development capable of advancing in the direction of catching up? Where are the limits to these possibilities? To what extent does the existence of such limits force us to characterize the capitalist choice as illusory?
Successive doctrinaire and black-and-white responses have been provided to these questions, first asserting one thing and then its opposite, always adapting ex post facto to changes that were never correctly envisioned in the first place, either by the dominant forces or the working classes. After the Second World War, the communists of the Third International described the bourgeoisie of the South as comprador. Maoism declared that the only possible path to liberation was the one opened by a “socialist revolution by stages,” led by the proletariat and its allies (the peasant classes in particular), and above all by their avant-garde mouthpiece—the Communist Party. Bandung was going to prove that this judgment was hasty, that under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, a national populist hegemonic bloc could advance development. The page turned on the Bandung era with the neoliberal offensive of oligopolistic capital from the imperialist center (the triad of the United States, Western and Central Europe, Japan). From 1980, the bourgeoisie of the South again appeared to be subjected to comprador status, clearly visible in the compulsory unilateral adjustment of the peripheries to the demands of the center, in some ways the reverse of the center’s adjustment to the peripheries forced on it during the Bandung era. But hardly had this reversal occurred then, once again, in the so-called emerging countries—mainly China, but also in other countries like India or Brazil—a margin for maneuver became apparent, offering opportunities to advance on a path of national capitalist development. Analyzing the potential of these advances, as well as their contradictions and limitations, should remain the focus for debate, and need to be extended and deepened so we can construct effective strategies to coordinate struggles at local and world levels.
2. GENERALIZED MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
Contemporary capitalism is a capitalism of generalized monopolies. What I mean by that is that monopolies no longer form islands (important as they might be) in an ocean of corporations that are not monopolies—and consequently are relatively autonomous—but an integrated system, and consequently now tightly control all productive systems. Small and medium-sized companies, and even large ones that are not themselves formally owned by the oligopolies, are enclosed in networks of control established by the monopolies upstream and downstream. Consequently, their margin of autonomy has shrunk considerably. These production units have become subcontractors for the monopolies. This system of generalized monopolies is the result of a new stage in the centralization of capital in the countries of the triad that developed in the 1980s and 1990s.
Simultaneously, these generalized monopolies dominate the world economy. “Globalization” is the name that they themselves have given to the imperatives through which they exercise their control over the productive systems of world capitalism’s peripheries (the entire world beyond the partners of the triad). This is nothing other than a new stage of imperialism.
As a system, generalized and globalized monopoly capitalism ensures that these monopolies derive a monopoly rent levied on the mass of surplus value (transformed into profits) that capital extracts from the exploitation of labor. To the extent that these monopolies operate in the peripheries of the globalized system, this monopoly rent becomes an imperialist rent. The capital accumulation process—which defines capitalism in all of its successive historical forms—is consequently governed by the maximization of monopolistic/imperialist rent.
This displacement of the center of gravity of capital accumulation lies behind the continual pursuit of the concentration of incomes and fortunes, increasing monopoly rents, and captured mostly by the oligarchies (plutocracies) that control the oligopolistic groups, to the detriment of labor incomes and even the revenues of non-monopolistic capital.
In turn, this continually growing disequilibrium is itself the origin of the financialization of the economic system. What I mean by that is that a growing portion of the surplus can no longer be invested in the expansion and strengthening of productive systems and that the “financial investment” of this growing surplus is the only possible alternative for continuing the accumulation controlled by the monopolies. This financialization, which accentuates the growth in unequal distribution of income (and wealth), generates the growing surplus on which it feeds. The financial investments (or, more accurately, investments of financial speculation) continue to grow at breathtaking rates, disproportionate with the rates of “GNP growth” (which itself then becomes largely false) or rates of investment in the productive system. The breathtaking growth in financial investments requires—and sustains—among other things, the growth in the debt, in all its forms, particularly sovereign debt. When existing governments claim to pursue the goal of “debt reduction,” they deliberately lie. The strategy of financialized monopolies needs growth in the debt (which they seek and do not oppose)—a financially attractive means to absorb the surplus from monopoly rents. Austerity policies imposed to “reduce the debt,” as it is said, actually end up increasing its volume, which is the sought-after consequence.
The Plutocrats: The New Ruling Class of Obsolescent Capitalism
The logic of accumulation lies in the growing concentration and centralization of control over capital. Formal ownership can be spread out (as in the “owners” of shares in pension plans), whereas the management of this property is controlled by financial capital.
We have reached a level of centralization in capital’s power of domination, such that the bourgeoisie’s forms of existence and organization as known up to now have been completely transformed. The bourgeoisie was initially formed from stable bourgeois families. From one generation to the next, the heirs carried on the specialized activities of their companies. The bourgeoisie was built and built itself over the long run. This stability encouraged confidence in “bourgeois values” and promoted their influence throughout the entire society. To a large extent, the bourgeoisie as dominant class was accepted as such. Its access to the privileges of comfort and wealth seemed deserved in return for the services they rendered. It also seemed mainly national in orientation, sensitive to national interests, whatever the ambiguities and limitations of this manipulated concept might have been. The new ruling class abruptly breaks with this tradition. Some describe the transformation in question as the development of active shareholders (sometimes even characterized as populist shareholders) fully reestablishing property rights. This laudatory and misleading characterization legitimizes the change and fails to recognize that the major aspect of the transformation involves the degree of concentration in control of capital and the accompanying centralization of power. The new ruling class is no longer counted in the tens of thousands or even millions, as was the case with the older bourgeoisie. Moreover, a large proportion of the new bourgeoisie is made up of newcomers who emerged more by the success of their financial operations (particularly in the stock market) than by their contribution to the technological breakthroughs of our era. Their ultrarapid rise is in stark contrast with their predecessors, whose rise took place over numerous decades.
The centralization of power, even more marked than the concentration of capital, reinforces the interpenetration of economic and political power. The “traditional” ideology of capitalism placed the emphasis on the virtues of property in general, particularly small property—in reality medium or medium-large property—considered to purvey technological and social progress through its stability. In opposition to that, the new ideology heaps praise on the “winners” and despises the “losers” without any other consideration. The “winner” here is almost always right, even when the means used are borderline illegal, if they are not
