' ', ' '

12 13
MONOPOLY CAPITAL INTRODUCTION

analyst of American monopoly capitalism today address the theoretical considerations set forth in this book apply to these
same message to the less developed parts of the capitalist ''second-echelon'' capitalist countries as well? Can these coun-
world? tries see here at least the outlines of the image of their own
As we look back on the history of the last hundred years, we future? Or have they entered, as we are often told, a stage of
can see that what Marx said to the less developed countries ''neo-capitalism'' characterized by the liquidation of old im-
actually applied to only a few of them those which never fell perialist ties, the adoption of rational planning by the state in
under, or had escaped from, the domination of more developed close partnership with Big Business and organized labor, and
countries and therefore could emulate the latter rather than the transcendence of the contradictions and conflicts which
being exploited by them and hence having their development have always beset capitalist development in the past and are
stunted and distorted to suit the needs of the dominant econ- still so n1uch in evidence, even if the forms are not always the
omy.s ~ertainly a similar limitation applies today: only a few familiar ones, in the United States?
countries most ?f Western Europe (including Britain), Japan, We cannot claim to answer these questions out of any de-
Canada, Austi·alia, New Zealand, possibly South Africa can tailed study of the recent history of the countries in question.
conceivably follow in the footsteps of the United States. In the But we can express our own strongly held opinion that the
rest .of the .capitalist world scores of colonies, neo-colonies, and burden of proof rests not on those of us who expect capitalist
s~mi-colonies are doomed to remain in their degraded condi- cot1ntries in comparable stages of economic development to
tion of underdeve~opment and misery. For them the only road have similar experiences, but on the prophets of a new dispen-
forward lea~s straight out of the capitalist system. 9 sation. In our lifetime the United States has been through two
Our question, then, boils down to the relevance of American periods during which the problems of capitalism were widely
ex~e~ience for perhaps a dozen or so countries which are capi- believed, and proclaimed to the whole world on the highest
talistically developed but less so than the United States. Do the authority, to be on the way to final solution the New Era of
8 the 1920's and the American Celebration of the 1950's. The fact
Marx probably intended his message only for this group of inde-
pend~nt and a~tually developing capitalist countries. ''De te fabula nar- that both turned out to be short-lived illusions should make
ratur was specrfically addressed to Germans who might think their coun- people in other countries very cautious about accepting similar
try could escape the ~ate of .Britain; and when he spoke of industrial! assurances today.
less developed countries see~ng the image of their future in the mor~
developed, he probably had rn mind countries which were develo ed b
the. standards o.f the time, only less so than Britain. It seems doubtful thft
he intended to include. among the .industrially less developed countries the
und.er~eveloped colonral and semr-colonial dependencies of th d d
cap1tal1st powers. e a vance
: ,.
9
:! !f II • This of course is not the view of bourgeois social science which ever
srnc.e t~e Second World War has been busily propagating reci es for the
cap1tal1st development of underdeveloped countrr'es Fo P 't" f
h f h · 1· d · r a err rqtre o
mu: ~ t rs rterature an a demonstration of the virtual im ossibilit of
cap1tal1st development of underdeveloped countries in the pf.esent w~rld
context, see Paul. A. Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, Cha ters
6 ~nd 7.hEverythrng that has happened in tI1e decade since that hoofwas
written as confirmed the accuracy and relevance of the· t d
. · II ·
Vanced on th rs crucra y important question. argumen s a -