The Bourgeoisie in the Imperialist World System. | Kommunistische Partei — https://kommunistischepartei.de/diskussion/the-bourgeoisie-in-the-imperialist-world-system/

Summary of the article in short theses:

• In today’s capitalism, monopolistic finance capital has become the dominant type of capital worldwide. Industrial monopolies are also a form of finance capital; in them, too, capital ownership is separated from functioning capital and they realize a large part of their profits through financial operations.

• Theses according to which the imperialist world system today is unipolar dominated by the USA are not tenable. The argument that U.S. asset managers and institutional investors would play a world-dominating role and thus push all other countries into unilateral dependence on themselves are, at the very least, greatly exaggerated and do not stand up to scrutiny.

• The term “comprador bourgeoisie” is totally inappropriate to characterize the bourgeoisie in weaker countries of the imperialist world system. In these countries, too, monopoly capital rules and, in order to pursue its own profit strategies, it enters into links on a global scale based on unequal mutual dependence with other finance-capitalist monopolies. However, this does not cause it to lose its independence, nor does it make it a mere appendage of the foreign monopolies. The category of the “comprador class,” on the other hand, originated in the context of colonial rule and referred either to pre-capitalist ruling classes or to nonmonopolistic capital that acted as a mere intermediary of foreign monopolies.

• A closer look at the Russian capitalist class in particular substantiates this point: Here, too, we are not dealing with a “comprador bourgeoisie,” but with developed monopoly capital. Neither does it act as an intermediary of the foreign monopolies, nor is it particularly dependent on them. On the contrary, its dependence has been significantly reduced in recent years, precisely as a result of the conflict with the West. Russian capital is nevertheless actively involved in international capital movements. The view of Russian capital exports as mere “capital flight” is erroneous and based on an inadequate understanding of capital movements.

#russia #usa #ukraine #capital #marx