Formulations such as the one that imperialism is “the final phase of capitalism” (Luxemburg 1913, 427), “decaying capitalism” (Lenin 1917, 300), and that in it the “ruin of the bourgeoisie is inevitable” (Bukharin and Preobrazhensky 1920 [2007], 143) not just show a certain political optimism of the revolutionaries of the time, but also a certain for the time common structuralism that assumes an inevitable breakdown of capitalism. Around 100 years later, capitalism can still be characterised as imperialism and continues to experience major outbreaks of its inherent crisis tendencies, although it has taken on new qualities, which allow characterising it as a new imperialism (cp. Foster and McChesney 2012; Harvey 2003; Wood 2003). Classical concepts of imperialism also can be used for analysing that in the new imperialism the information industries form one of the highest concentrated economic sectors, that hyperindustrialism, finance and informationalism belong together, that transnational informational corporations are grounded in nation states, but operate globally, capitalism dominates the information sector globally, and information technology plays a role as a means of war (for detailed analyses, see: Fuchs 2012, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c).
11.2 Imperialism and the Division of Labour
Lenin (1917, 221–222) uses the notion of the division of labour as meaning a division between industries, on which certain banks focus their investment activities. He sees the export of capital in contrast to the export of goods as a crucial feature of imperialism:
As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilised not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap. (Lenin 1917, 241)
Bukharin (1917, 18 and 21) argued based on Marx that a social division of labour between town and country, enterprises, branches, economic subdivisions, and countries is a feature of capitalism. He calls the latter the international division of labour (Bukharin 1917, 18). It would partly have natural causes – “Cocoa can be produced only in tropical countries” (p. 19) – and partly social causes: “the unequal development of productive forces creates different economic types and different production spheres, thus increasing the scope of international social division of labour” (p. 20).
Chapter Eleven | Digital Labour and Imperialism
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Imperialism and the Division of Labour