What is the Marxist explanation for why Germany was richer and more powerful than France and Great Britain in the 20th century?
- Thread starter Real History
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prani
Banned
Irony ain't it, the went in for quality it became less reliable, the funny or sad part is that the Germans didn't seem to get the memo cause German cars are far better than Japanese cars, like German cars are sophisticated and elegant and have complex features basically Gucci of the auto World but not reliable....so if you guys want a feel how the wehrmacht felt then ask a guy who owns a German car
prani
Banned
Huh? Doesn't public infrastructure include education, public health care, sewage etc
Public infrastructure - Wikipedia
That is why I said public infrastructure as opposed to physical infrastructure
As others have pointed out, claiming that Marx considered wealth to be built merely through colonial exploitation is a massive over-simplification.
Later 'Marxists' such as Lenin and Mao were much more concerned with colonialism and its economic outcomes than Marx himself.
A full explanation of Marxist economic theory is way too long for here, but the tl;dr version is that capitalism is a natural historic outgrowth of the feudal system that characterised pre-modern Europe and which still persisted in parts of Central and Eastern Europe by his time (i.e. Russia and Austria-Hungary) that would inevitably give way to socialism.
There were a number of contributors to how wealthy elites were able to concentrate economic power. In some countries such as France, a new bourgeoisie developed as a result of economic modernisation brought about in part by the creation of an absolute monarchy which limited the power of the rest of the nobility. In some other countries such as Britain and many parts of Germany, existing aristocrats invested some of their wealth into new productive industries, thus making the transition from an aristocratic to a capitalist class.
As other repliers have noted, its arguable that Germany had a bigger economy than France or Britain. Im not an expert and dont have statistics on it, but the lack of an overseas empire might have actually promoted having a larger middle class, which tends to be a good thing for consumption-driven demand and overall economic growth (although then we're drifting into Keynesian territory).
Marx did consider Germany to be the most advanced economy in the world and the likeliest part of Europe to see a socialist revolution. This isnt necessarily because of Germany's wealth, but rather that a larger percentage of the population was part of the "proletariat" class due to Germany's rapid industrialisation, something that was in part allowed by the abundant coal resources of Germany.
With regards to Lenin, he believed that part of the reason that socialist revolution didn't occur in Britain or France is that, given they had the largest and most valuable colonial empires, the cheap exotic goods gained from exploitation of subjugated peoples essentially "bought off" the British and French proletariats, making them supporters of the status quo when combined with propagandising from their governments. That reality and distance and racial differences basically made the idea of solidarity between the proletariat of the colonial metropoles and the colonised peoples of the world impossible. Afaik, this is subject matter that Marx himself didn't really address.
I think its often forgotten that Marx was at his core an economist, not a political theorist. He understood that politics is shaped by material conditions first and foremost, but wasnt a political theorist like Lenin.
Later 'Marxists' such as Lenin and Mao were much more concerned with colonialism and its economic outcomes than Marx himself.
A full explanation of Marxist economic theory is way too long for here, but the tl;dr version is that capitalism is a natural historic outgrowth of the feudal system that characterised pre-modern Europe and which still persisted in parts of Central and Eastern Europe by his time (i.e. Russia and Austria-Hungary) that would inevitably give way to socialism.
There were a number of contributors to how wealthy elites were able to concentrate economic power. In some countries such as France, a new bourgeoisie developed as a result of economic modernisation brought about in part by the creation of an absolute monarchy which limited the power of the rest of the nobility. In some other countries such as Britain and many parts of Germany, existing aristocrats invested some of their wealth into new productive industries, thus making the transition from an aristocratic to a capitalist class.
As other repliers have noted, its arguable that Germany had a bigger economy than France or Britain. Im not an expert and dont have statistics on it, but the lack of an overseas empire might have actually promoted having a larger middle class, which tends to be a good thing for consumption-driven demand and overall economic growth (although then we're drifting into Keynesian territory).
Marx did consider Germany to be the most advanced economy in the world and the likeliest part of Europe to see a socialist revolution. This isnt necessarily because of Germany's wealth, but rather that a larger percentage of the population was part of the "proletariat" class due to Germany's rapid industrialisation, something that was in part allowed by the abundant coal resources of Germany.
With regards to Lenin, he believed that part of the reason that socialist revolution didn't occur in Britain or France is that, given they had the largest and most valuable colonial empires, the cheap exotic goods gained from exploitation of subjugated peoples essentially "bought off" the British and French proletariats, making them supporters of the status quo when combined with propagandising from their governments. That reality and distance and racial differences basically made the idea of solidarity between the proletariat of the colonial metropoles and the colonised peoples of the world impossible. Afaik, this is subject matter that Marx himself didn't really address.
I think its often forgotten that Marx was at his core an economist, not a political theorist. He understood that politics is shaped by material conditions first and foremost, but wasnt a political theorist like Lenin.
Sophisticated sure, but IMO Toyota is the best car manufacturer in the world. The degree of reliability on models such as the Yaris, Corolla and Aqua are just ridiculous. Had a Yaris running with no major decline in performance when the fanbelt came off... incredible.
This is a sidebar to the OP, but the Maginot Line was build to channel a German attack, and to allow France time to mobilize. It was never militarily intended to wall France off from Germany. Politically, it took on that character after the fact, and became symbolic of the malaise of France pre-war.
Not if you compare like for like. A current model year VW Passat doesn't offer anything of note over a current model year Honda Civic.
Although the Passat I rented had very severe electrical problems which my Civic does not have.
I believe I've been summoned.
I am going to treat Marxism here as a series of conflicting bourgeois ideologies produced by individual intellectuals attempting to deal with the world by a variety of disciplinary schemas known broadly as Historical Materialism, or as World Systems theory, or as Class Composition studies; or as Dialectical Materialism, or as Diamat, or as Structuralist Marxism. We are not here going to treat the organic ideologies derived from class struggle as possessed by movements of workers seeking to defeat their own position in a society, for this I prefer the term class consciousness or communism.
Something similar happened in Bonn between bombings.
The alternative is Compositional Studies coming out of Italy which focuses more on class composition in the mould of CLR James account of the Black Jacobins which instead of centring Capital in the narrative as World Systems does, rather centres working-class consciousness producing a proletariat. Caliban and the Witch is the chief text on long distance trade here.
The first account predicates imperial profit on: imperial trade being unified even with disjunctures like trade blocs, thus Germany post-war can profit from Soviet or US trade networks despite not having direct imperium like the Soviets or Americans did. The first account also acknowledges rates of profitability in trade between first world nations: Germany and Germany renewed their capital stocks in 1946 for some reason. The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom had preexisting capital stocks built in the 1860s and 1930s which were somewhat out of date and less productive than capital stock built in the 1960s. Germany and Germany could leverage the power of new capital stock to produce more faster cheaper than the UK or USSR could.
The second account deals more strongly with class and class composition and class consciousness. Germany built after 1946 a society where workers would be integrated and controlled by a system of national production for profit. Where workers would be explicitly bought off with higher relative wages than in another capitalist system, at the cost of higher buy in to producing high quality products requiring precision and investment. Germany purchased more labour power in the form of more skilled and more dedicated labour power. A DDR worker producing chemical film was exerting herself more carefully and with more years of training than a worker in Hungary or Bulgaria. Thus the DDR produced more profit per worker than Romania or the Soviet Union. A corresponding phenomena happened in the Bonn republic.
In conclusion: Marx and Engels did write about fucking over Asia; Lenin's Imperialism isn't that important; Marxists deal primarily with either Imperium or Home in terms of imperialist profitability (but with great cross over); there are many Marxisms, all of them bourgeois ideology produced by individuals; the best profit situation comes from Imperial access (without paying the occupation costs) while having the most up to date systems of brutalisation of workers and the most up to date factory plant. The Germanies renewed their factory plant twice in the 20th century, and often had really really good systems of worker brutalisation that were up to date. After 1946 they led the world in a new form of worker brutalisation often described as "post-fordism."
yours,
Sam R.
yours,
Sam R.
I am going to treat Marxism here as a series of conflicting bourgeois ideologies produced by individual intellectuals attempting to deal with the world by a variety of disciplinary schemas known broadly as Historical Materialism, or as World Systems theory, or as Class Composition studies; or as Dialectical Materialism, or as Diamat, or as Structuralist Marxism. We are not here going to treat the organic ideologies derived from class struggle as possessed by movements of workers seeking to defeat their own position in a society, for this I prefer the term class consciousness or communism.
Well, yeah, but unless you've got a well articulated theoretical construct of "capitalism" that is sufficiently developed to possess explanatory power…
Old Kazza used slavery to refer to a kind of social relationship that he typified by occasionally off-handedly referencing Roman social economics. He used this as a metaphor for the "proletarians" those only capable of selling their sons in Rome to talk about how workers of his epoch could only sell their labour, this was a metaphor that we commonly know in English language as "wage-slavery," which is not the same as ancient slavery in Marx's writings or in the writings of Marxists. Slaves were bodily owned pieces of productive property and their owners had an interest in keeping them alive. Wage slaves are rented mules.
Yes, but enough about the DDR, why was the Bonn republic also richer?
I would suggest that Leninism is a minority in bourgeois Marxist intellectual circles. The Soviet Union and PRC's state intellectuals went through dynamic changes that distanced them from Leninism via Diamat which turned on the Imperialist analysis in early Lenin, and in China's case a similar turn to internal development returned the Marxist influence there to internal development.
Except that Kazza and Freddie wrote a lot about China and India. And there are intellectual alternatives to Lenin's imperialism thesis such as World-Systems or compositional studies. Even in compositional studies you have the Caliban and the Witch argument about peripheral development of class composition being reimported to Europe: the first workers were black slaves in the Caribbean etc. So there's obviously a long division within Historical Materialism between "Periphery first" and "Europe first" questions of capital accumulation and in the Black jacobin tradition the development of the actual relations of class and mechanisation. The sugar mill implies the 1790s British Banking run..
According to some Marxist traditions, yes.
This appears to be a statement prior to the 2nd war. After the second war Germany was a colonising nation existing as part of the Soviet Capital bloc exploiting the shit out of 3rd world Soviet aligned states, and second world states with less developed and less modern productive forces. Germany ate the bananas and fruits of peripheral revolutions.
Something similar happened in Bonn between bombings.
One of the key points of the Imperialist thesis is around surplus profits. Both that colonies supply a means to "dump" undercapitalised capital goods in areas where the wages are low enough to make the out of date fabric production work (China was 20 years ago doing this to Vietnam), and the colonies also provide a method of profit by extracting at GDP-PPP that is low, and selling at GDP-PPP that is high. My cheap Chinese pants, 20 years ago, were worn by similar men in China, at a similar proportion of their wage. Even though their wage was comprised of a capital plant that was then out of date, where as my wage was produced in an environment with (then) more modern plant. China sold 10% of a Chinese wage's pants at 10% of an Australian wages pants for a profit.
The current go to is World-Systems theory out of France as a historical materialist version of the Imperialism thesis with 60 years of French bourgeois academic thinking about how trade flows actually work, and how periphery and semi-periphery states work as well as the imperial centre. How production flows to cheap wages, but retreats back to the railhead as logistics improve.
The alternative is Compositional Studies coming out of Italy which focuses more on class composition in the mould of CLR James account of the Black Jacobins which instead of centring Capital in the narrative as World Systems does, rather centres working-class consciousness producing a proletariat. Caliban and the Witch is the chief text on long distance trade here.
The first account predicates imperial profit on: imperial trade being unified even with disjunctures like trade blocs, thus Germany post-war can profit from Soviet or US trade networks despite not having direct imperium like the Soviets or Americans did. The first account also acknowledges rates of profitability in trade between first world nations: Germany and Germany renewed their capital stocks in 1946 for some reason. The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom had preexisting capital stocks built in the 1860s and 1930s which were somewhat out of date and less productive than capital stock built in the 1960s. Germany and Germany could leverage the power of new capital stock to produce more faster cheaper than the UK or USSR could.
The second account deals more strongly with class and class composition and class consciousness. Germany built after 1946 a society where workers would be integrated and controlled by a system of national production for profit. Where workers would be explicitly bought off with higher relative wages than in another capitalist system, at the cost of higher buy in to producing high quality products requiring precision and investment. Germany purchased more labour power in the form of more skilled and more dedicated labour power. A DDR worker producing chemical film was exerting herself more carefully and with more years of training than a worker in Hungary or Bulgaria. Thus the DDR produced more profit per worker than Romania or the Soviet Union. A corresponding phenomena happened in the Bonn republic.
While I agree with this thrust of argument, obviously from the above, we both know how complex and political producing wage price series and other series that go to real productivity and consumption is. It is almost as if bourgeois ideologies know that these measures are implicit critiques of the existing society as their crude political position is shown in their assumption of who needs to work how much and who needs to eat how much? Australia's PPP series does not include housing. Housing has always been a major differentiator within the working class about consumption and stability in Australia.
In conclusion: Marx and Engels did write about fucking over Asia; Lenin's Imperialism isn't that important; Marxists deal primarily with either Imperium or Home in terms of imperialist profitability (but with great cross over); there are many Marxisms, all of them bourgeois ideology produced by individuals; the best profit situation comes from Imperial access (without paying the occupation costs) while having the most up to date systems of brutalisation of workers and the most up to date factory plant. The Germanies renewed their factory plant twice in the 20th century, and often had really really good systems of worker brutalisation that were up to date. After 1946 they led the world in a new form of worker brutalisation often described as "post-fordism."
yours,
Sam R.
yours,
Sam R.
My class consciousness isn't the only thing aroused by this post.
Fantastic contribution, Sam!
Oh boy it's one of those again
Now, let's see, where did I put the popcorn last time?
octoberman
Banned
Yet East Germany was less industrialized than West Germany and Germany was more industrialized than Britain and France before WWII