Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century

put together a load of notes on this really great study for anyone who might find them useful aonchiallach.github.io/posts/smith_notes/

in overall terms Imperialism in the twenty-first century makes a very convincing argument for i) imperialism as a fundamental component of contemporary capitalism, ii) the necessity of incorporating a Marxist reading of economic literature pertaining to underdevelopment and iii) the provincialism of Euro-Marxists (read: British Trots in the SWP).

Smith's central argument is that the bourgeoisie in the imperial core have begun to reap 'super-profits' by outsourcing large parts of the productive process to ultra low-wage economies such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya and paying workers below the socially necessary rate, which would allow them to maintain their own conditions of existence. The parts of the text that describe the conditions in which millions of people now live and work is harrowing in the extreme. There is an enormous amount of statistics here and serious unpacking of concepts drawn from all three volumes of Capital, which were not as fresh in my mind as I would like, but Smith is highly readable and always has two to three paragraphs summing things up for slower readers. It's a really refreshing and welcome approach for someone who really knows their Marx to take.

Smith's critics have attempted to paint him as a third-worldist or Stalinist recommending variously, cross-class collaboration in the imperial core or 'there is no such thing as a worker in the west'-type positions. This sadly confirms much of his objections to contemporary trends on the organised / academic left which seems largely uninterested in re-evaluating old models in light of new evidence or historical development. At no stage does Smith moralise about the western working class and his criticisms of the failures of the USSR and China to establish a firm and consistent line on national liberation struggles, to see beyond their own short to medium term diplomatic objectives with western powers, are proportionate and accurate. The Cuban revolution, with its impeccable internationalist objectives is the hero of the work, though the broader point is the sketching out of a model that explains why the labour movements in Europe and the United States have never meaningfully opposed their own ruling class on behalf of those in the global south. Any explanation for why the twentieth century took the course it did needs to reckon with that and of course, a particular type of doctrinaire Trotskyist does not. In a bid to better understand some of the material I ran my own analyses on updated datasets and found Smith's empirical basis for arguing that while worker power is being eroded on a global basis rates of exploitation are rising slower within the west, remained robust.

The book is not only worth reading for all the reasons that I've set out here, but I think it's also extremely worthwhile as a reference text. At some length Smith lays out the problems involved with currently existing datasets which purport to represent levels of value-add in manufacturing or wage rates, given their being collected on the basis of neoclassical economic assumptions and how much economic activity simply remains uncaptured, precisely because of the depths of the inequality these trends have brought about. There is also really great evaluations of the works of other Marxists; massive gaps or obfuscations are identified in the works of figures such as David Harvey, Ellen Mieksins Wood, Robert Brenner and Samir Amin. If every book elaborating on Marxist theory was this good we'd be sorted