We now have to examine yet another very
important aspect of imperialism to which, usually,
insufficient importance is attached in most of the discussions
on this subject. One of the shortcomings of the Marxist
Hilferding is that he takes a step backward compared with the
non-Marxist Hobson. We refer to parasitism, which is
characteristic of imperialism.
As we have seen, the deepest economic
foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist
monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and
exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity
production and competition, in permanent and insoluble
contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like
all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency to stagnation
and decay. Since monopoly prices are established, even
temporarily, the motive cause of technical and, consequently,
of all progress, disappears to a certain extent and, further,
the economic possibility arises of deliberately
retarding technical progress. For instance, in America, a
certain Owens invented a machine which revolutionized the
manufacture of bottles. The German bottle-manufacturing cartel
purchased Owens' patent, but pigeonholed it, refrained from
utilizing it. Certainly, monopoly under capitalism can never
completely, and for a very long period of time, eliminate
competition in the world market (and this, by the by, is one
of the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperialism is so
absurd). Certainly, the possibility of reducing cost of
production and increasing profits by introducing technical
improvements operates in the direction of change. But the
tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic
of monopoly, continues to operate, and in certain branches of
industry, in certain countries, for certain periods of time,
it gains the upper hand.
The monopoly ownership of very extensive,
rich or well situated colonies, operates in the same direction.
Further, imperialism is an immense
accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting,
as we have seen, to 100-150 billion francs in securities.
Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a
social stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by "clipping
coupons," who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose
profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most
essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely
isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of
parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the
labor of several overseas countries and colonies.
"In 1893," writes Hobson, "the British
capital invested abroad represented about 15 per cent of the
total wealth of the United Kingdom."* [Hobson, op. cit.,
pp. 59, 60.] We will remind the reader that by 1915 this
capital had increased about two and a half times. "Aggressive
imperialism," says Hobson further on, "which costs the
taxpayer so dear, which is of 60 little value to the
manufacturer and trader ... is a source of great gain to the
investor.... The annual income Great Britain derives from
commissions in her whole foreign and colonial trade, import
and export, is estimated by Sir R. Giffen at £18,000,000 for
1899, taken a. 2.5 per cent, upon a turnover of £800,000,000."
Great as this sum is, it cannot explain the aggressive
imperialism of Great Britain. It is explained by the income of
go to 100 million pounds sterling from "invested" capital, the
income of the rentiers.
The income of the rentiers is five
times greater than the income obtained from the foreign
trade of the biggest "trading" country in the world. This is
the essence of imperialism and imperialist parasitism.
For that reason the term, "rentier state"
(Rentnerstaat) or usurer state, is coming into common use in
the economic literature that deals with imperialism. The world
has become divided into a handful of usurer states and a vast
majority of debtor states. "At the top of the list of foreign
investments," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "are those placed in
politically dependent or allied countries: Great Britain
grants loans to Egypt, Japan, China and South America. Her
navy plays here the part of bailiff in case of necessity.
Great Britain's political power protects her from the
indignation of her debtors."* [Schulze-Gaevernitz,
Britischer Imperialismus, p.320 et seq.] Sartorius von
Waltershausen in his book, The National Economic System of
Foreign Investments, cites Holland as the model "rentier
state" and points out that Great Britain and France are now
becoming such.** [Sartorius von Waltershausen, Das
volkswirtschaftliche System, etc., Berlin, 1907, Buch
IV.] Schilder is of the opinion that five industrial states
have become "definitely pronounced creditor countries": Great
Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. He does not
include Holland in this list simply because she is "industrially
little developed."*** [Schilder, op. cit., p. 393.]
The United States is a creditor only of the American countries.
"Great Britain," says Schulze-Gaevernitz, "is
gradually becoming transformed from an industrial into a
creditor state. Notwithstanding the absolute increase in
industrial output and the export of manufactured goods, the
relative importance of income from interest and dividends,
issues of securities, commissions and speculation is on the
increase in the whole of the national economy. In my opinion
it is precisely this that forms the economic basis of
imperialist ascendancy. The creditor is more firmly attached
to the debtor than the seller is to the buyer."* [Schulze-Gaevernitz,
Britischer Imperialismus, p. 122.] In regard to
Germany, A. Lansburgh, the publisher of the Berlin Die
Bank, in 1911, in an article entitled "Germany--a Rentier
State," wrote the following: "People in Germany are ready to
sneer at the yearning to become rentiers that is observed
among the people in France. But they forget that as far as the
bourgeoisie is concerned the situation in Germany is becoming
more and more like that in France."** [Die Bank,
1911, 1, pp. 10-11.]
The rentier state is a state of parasitic,
decaying capitalism, and this circumstance cannot fail to
influence all the social-political conditions of the countries
affected in general, and the two fundamental trends in the
working-class movement, in particular. To demonstrate this in
the clearest possible manner we will quote Hobson, who is the
most "reliable" witness, since he cannot be
suspected of leanings towards "Marxist orthodoxy"; on the
other hand, he is an
Englishman who is very well acquainted with the
situation in the country which is richest in colonies, in
finance capital, and in imperialist experience.
With the Anglo-Boer War fresh in his mind,
Hobson describes the connection between imperialism and the
interests of the "financiers," the growing profits from
contracts, etc., and writes: "While the directors of this
definitely parasitic policy are capitalists, the same motives
appeal to special classes of the workers. In many towns, most
important trades are dependent upon government employment or
contracts; the imperialism of the metal and ship-building
centers is attributed in no small degree to this fact." In
this writer's opinion there are two causes which have weakened
the old empires: 1) "economic parasitism," and 2) the
formation of armies composed of subject peoples. "There is
first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling
state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in
order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower
classes into acquiescence." And we would add that the economic
possibility of such bribery, whatever its form may be,
requires high monopolist profits.
As for the second cause, Hobson writes:
"One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism
is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France
and other imperial nations are embarking on this perilous
dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the
fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done
by natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great
standing armies are placed under British commanders; almost
all the fighting associated with our African dominions, except
in the southern part, has been done for us by natives."
Hobson gives the following economic
appraisal of the prospect of the partition of China: "The
greater part of Western Europe might then assume the
appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of
country in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the
tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland,
little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and
pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of
professional retainers and tradesmen and a large body of
personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in
the final stages of production of the more perishable goods;
all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the
staple foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia
and Africa." "We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a
larger alliance of Western States, a European federation of
great powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world
civilization, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western
parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose
upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with
which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer
engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and
manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor
industrial services under the control of a new financial
aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory" (it
would be better to say: prospect) "as undeserving of
consideration examine the economic and social condition of
districts in Southern England today which are already reduced
to this condition, and reflect upon the vast
extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by
the subjection of China to the economic control of similar
groups of financiers, investors, and political and business
officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit
the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe.
The situation is far too complex, the play of world-forces far
too incalculable, to render this or any other single
interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences
which govern the Imperialism of Western Europe today are
moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted,
make towards some such consummation."* [Hobson, op. cit.,
pp. 103, 205, 144, 335, 186.]
The author is quite right: if the
forces of imperialism had not been counteracted they would
have led precisely to what he has described. The significance
of a "United States of Europe" in the present imperialist
situation is correctly appraised. He should have added,
however, that, also within the working-class movement,
the opportunists, who are for the moment victorious in most
countries, are "working" systematically and undeviatingly in
this very direction. Imperialism, which means the partition of
the world, and the exploitation of other countries besides
China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very
rich countries, creates the economic possibility of bribing
the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters,
gives form to, and strengthens opportunism. We must not,
however, lose sight of the forces which counteract imperialism
in general, and opportunism in particular, and which,
naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to perceive.
The German opportunist, Gerhard Hildebrand,
who was expelled from the Party for defending imperialism, and
who could today be a leader of the so-called "Social-Democratic"
Party of Germany, supplements Hobson well by his advocacy of a
"United States of Western Europe" (without Russia) for the
purpose of "joint" action... against the African Negroes,
against the "great Islamic movement," for the
maintenance of a "powerful army and navy," against a "Sino-Japanese
coalition,"* [Gerhard Hildebrand, Die Errschutterung der
Industrieherrschaft und des Industriesozialismus (The
Shattering of the Rule of Industrialism and Industrial
Socialism--Tr.), 1910, p. 229 et seq.] etc.
The description of "British imperialism" in
Schulze-Gaevernitz's book reveals the same parasitical traits.
The national income of Great Britain approximately doubled
from 1865 to 1898, while the income "from abroad" increased
ninefold in the same period. While the "merit" of
imperialism is that it "trains the Negro to habits of industry"
(not without coercion, of course ...), the "danger" of
imperialism lies in that "Europe will shift the burden of
physical toil --first agricultural and mining, then the
rougher work in industry--on to the colored races, and itself
be content with the role of rentier, and in this way, perhaps,
pave the way for the economic, and later, the political
emancipation of the colored races."
An increasing proportion of land in Great
Britain is being taken out of cultivation and used for sport,
for the diversion of the rich. About Scotland--the most
aristocratic playground in the world--it is said that "it
lives on its past and on Mr. Carnegie." On horse racing and
fox hunting alone Britain annually spends £14,000,000. The
number of rentiers in England is about one million. The
percentage of the productively-employed population to the
total population is declining:
