Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism

by Bill Warren, John Sender

Ever since the First World War, socialists have considered imperialism a calamity: responsible for militarism, economic stagnation, and assaults on democracy in the metropolitan countries, an impediment to economic and cultural development in the Third World. So widespread has this view become that it is shared, in its essentials, not only by Marxists but also by an entire school of liberal development economists. Bill Warren breaks with this traditional outlook, arguing that the theory of imperialism, one of Marxism's most influential concepts, is not only contradicted by the facts, but has diluted and distorted Marxism itself.

In particular, Warren disputes the claim that "monopoly capitalism" represents the ultimate stage of senile capitalism and sets out to refute the notion that imperialism is a regressive force impeding or distorting economic development in the Third World. The book argues on the contrary that direct colonialism powerfully impelled social change in Asia and Africa, laying the foundation for a vibrant indigenous capitalism. Finally, it takes issue with the conventional view that postwar economic performance in the Third World has been disastrous, presenting a powerful empirical case that the gap between rich and poor countries is actually narrowing.

Closely argued, clearly written, original and iconoclastic, Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism is a compelling challenge to one of the chief tenets of contemporary socialist politics.

Genres: Economics, Politics

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Bill Warren (1935–1978) was a British Communist, originally a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and later a contributor to New Left Review. In his last years he was a member of the British and Irish Communist Organization. He is best remembered as the author of Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism. This unconventional Marxist analysis was published posthumously in 1980 and is still being debated.

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astounding. Meshes very well with E.M. Wood's Empire of Capital.

Having had plenty time to reflect on Imperialism, and having read quite a few texts taking position in relation to it, I feel ready to expand into a full review of Warren's iconoclastic text.

Bill Warren is a strange figure. A British communist, originally attached to the Third International CPGB, he later joined the British and Irish Communist Organisation. This group took a few very peculiar positions: they were against the Irish freedom struggle against the Brits, seeing this as an atavistic regression from international class struggle; they were anti-anti-zionist; they supported the Brits during the Falkland wars, arguing that they were the more progressive and developed side and hence their victory would push ahead history. At the same time, they defended all socialist countries, despite disagreeing with their outward political line on collaboration with the national bourgeoisie.

I only learned of this after finishing Imperialism, but I could immediately understand the continuity between its politics and that of its author's organisation. Imperialism's thesis is simple:
1) Marx recognised capitalist imperialism and welcomed it, as it is a) unstoppable and b) the necessary condition for capitalist development in a precapitalist world;
2) Lenin's Imperialism is economically flawed and cherrypicks data to support the foreign policy of the bolsheviks, itself dictated by political necessity: an alliance with the oppressed people of the colonies against the euro-atlantic core that had quickly invaded the fledgling socialist state after the revolution;
3) theories of capitalist underdevelopment of the third world, first-world growth at the cost of third-world stagnation, and worldwide value transfer from the third world to the first, inhibiting autonomous development, are a consequence of this position, that outside of its moribund origin context is simply no longer relevant or true. 'Delinking' is nonsense. Neocolonialism is likewise a political doctrine tied to Soviet foreign policy, but useless as an empirical framework;
4) capitalism is developing the third world as we speak, despite first-world projections of stagnation, and we should let it run its course until after it runs into the limits of its own mature contradictions, or an external war reshuffles the local CPs' chances.

To be brief, he has me convinced on point 1), and I was impressed by the extensive sourcing on 2) and 3), but eventually I rejected its main political conclusions.

1') It's funny. I've got a tome of Marx & Engels', On Colonialism, on my bookshelf, a Soviet-era compilation of their scattered writings on the colonial question. In these, they come forward as stalwart anti-imperialists. Warren, however, directs our attention to a different Marx: a Marx who is enthusiastic about the development the Brits fostered onto India, celebrating the expansion of American dominance, anticipating the growth of colonial proletariats ready to join the socialist quest. To my mind, there can be no question about it that Marx was at the very least wavering on this, and later interpretations had indeed more to do with a 'political correctness' than with theoretical rigour.

2') Warren unearths very interesting discussions from the beginning of the Third International. For instance, the Indian Communist Party was against a broad anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist front, arguing that they still benefited from British investments and that there is no necessary continuity between an anti-imperialist war and an socialist revolution.

I'm less able to judge his criticisms of Lenin's economics in Imperialism. Warren argues that Lenin's argument - namely that the age of imperialism is a consequence of capitalism's "over-ripeness", turning its once productive dynamics into a parasitical outwards-directed scavenging - is are cherry-picked. He shows that the levels of inward investment were still increasing and there was no correlation between the 'imperialist' export of capital and rising military tensions. The First World War, then, was an 'accidental' war, that said nothing about capitalism and all the more about random geopolitical factors. I might return to this point later.

3') Warren presents us with statistics on GDP development in the third world, the rise of south-south investment and trade, the construction of infrastructure and even the development of individualist mentality -- all of this is given as proof of capitalism's further development of the third world, rather than its impoverishment. His central argument is that the third world is only poor by contemporary first-world standards; but really, it should be judged by its own pre-capitalist conditions and the speed with which it escapes this. The poverty of colonies is nothing exceptional, compared to the violence of the Industrial Revolution, and he even allows himself to proclaim that relatively speaking, colonization went relatively peacefully. Any positing of an "ideal" autonomous third-world capitalist development, that was rudely interrupted by imperialist destruction and subsequent funneling away of profits, is a-historical and antimarxist. Since there is no such ideal development, all we got is real development. Moreover, since colonies have wrested political power back from the imperialist metropoles, they are now free to develop their own economies and any backwardness is a result of bad policy choices, not any world-economic tendencies. That investors in first-world countries repatriate profits from third-world subsidiaries does not imply a net drain, but rather different 'speeds' of accumulation in first and third world countries. This is unfortunate but still historically progressive.

Warren has the maths to back up this view on an abstract level. However, this is where he seriously goes off-road. A growth in GDP says nothing about the nature of the industries that make up this number, and even less about innate tendencies or conscious planning. He can be forgiven for not factoring in trademark IMF austerity-debt-trap policies, as he died before they were generalized. But even so, Warren has a remarkably classless view of economic development, that most importantly disregards the materiality of nations (see Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire). No country has escaped from poverty without significant state-led development, often going against the grain of capitalist short-term profit-seeking and especially against the disequilibriating forces of the world market. This goes for the imperial core, too. History shows, however, that state-led development is very reliant on the balance of class power within the country to force its capitalist class to make short-term compromises and prioritize long-term stable growth; likewise, significant political unity is needed to brave the economic fallout of protectionism and hothouse policies.

Warren's numbers are too abstract to distinguish between nations that 'went with the flow' of global capitalist dynamics and those, like Nasser's Egypt or the various state capitalist/socialist formations that went against this. Thus, they can be used to argue either point. History only allows for one interpretation. Nations that escaped colonial backwardness (China, Vietnam, South Korea, Libya, Syria to some degree, Taiwan,...) all accomplished this through state-led development that, indeed, was not 'delinking' from the world economy pure and simple, but did require the proper balance of forces (either an anti-imperialist, socialist, nationalist front, or the acquiescence of the United States) to allow a relative delinking to occur. To achieve this unity, investment is needed in public works and public consumption; to free up capital for this, it must be recuperated from the profits made, which implies cutting back on the outflow to first-world investors and on luxury consumption in the third world country, which requires wresting power away from comprador layers and withstanding the onslaught of imperialists. While Warren makes a point saying that absolute development of GDP counts for something, even if the first world develops faster (eg GDP Belgium-Congo from, eg, 500-5 to 1000-10 in a decade), he forgets that this economic development has political consequences. The twentieth century is rife with imperialist wars fought simply to block capital accumulation in the third world from creating an internal market and national industries, and to keep these nations tied to first-world economies in a very specific, 'neocolonial' manner. Even if economic development would theoretically, in a vacuum, allow for a successful autonomous capitalism, reality does not. I'm sure I'm overlooking some of the finer points of Warren's argument, but in broad strokes this is what it comes down to.

Defeating point 3) drags 4) down with it. Backing the UK against the Falklands will not develop Argentina quicker than developing the Argentine state. France's stranglehold over Niger has not benefited it in the slightest, developing only those sectors that benefit the metropole and purposely stripping others so as to create a vast labour reserve of the unemployed and the precariously employed, minimizing labour costs. This actively impedes autonomous development. What's necessary is a powerful state, backed by national unity, to build up its own industries and bolster its own consumption. The world market can play a role in this, but if allowed to take the lead, it will impoverish rather than develop the ex-colonies.

It's strange. This entire discussion boils down to Ricardo's doctrine of comparative advantage. If left to its own devices, the market will bless countries based on their innate strengths and spread the wealth around the world. In reality, it is the opposite - "innate strengths" are either exceptional (oil/tropical commodities) or the result of costly state-led development, and developed producers will tear apart primitive economies, replacing them with overcrowded cities without any prospects for employment, a parasitical layer wasting funds on luxury, and vast uncontrolled labour migration. Luckily, Marx already dismissed Ricardo's theory, which really was the ideological excuse for the domination of the most developed capitalists in a "free" world market, so we needn't bother with it anymore. Warren, despite his evident erudition, somehow overlooked this, resurrecting for his own sectarian purposes a battle that had already been decided.

Why then the high marks? For all its flaws, which are fundamental and important, Warren is a very honest theorist. Sparring with his views forced me to understand the world-economic implications of capitalism to a much greater degree than I had when I relied on 'mainstream' third international notions of neocolonialism and value transfer. It's a niche, wrong-headed text, but I would still recommend everyone interested in this debate to read it, even if just to hone your own arguments. I'm afraid I bought the last copy Verso had in stock, though, so you might need to rifle through second-hand stores...

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a subject area, this is something that is nearly impossible to describe now in our modern academic
context. Just recently, a scholar by the name of Bruce Gilley published a piece in peer reviewed journal Third World Quarterly titled, "The Case for Colonialism". The author and the journal received violent threats and submitted a withdrawal notice on the paper stating,

"This Viewpoint essay has been withdrawn at the request of the academic journal editor, and in agreement with the author of the essay. Following a number of complaints, Taylor & Francis conducted a thorough investigation into the peer review process on this article. Whilst this clearly demonstrated the essay had undergone double-blind peer review, in line with the journal's editorial policy, the journal editor has subsequently received serious and credible threats of personal violence. These threats are linked to the publication of this essay. As the publisher, we must take this seriously. Taylor & Francis has a strong and supportive duty of care to all our academic editorial teams, and this is why we are withdrawing this essay."

This is unacceptable and totally against what academic inquiry ought to stand for. If the author is so egregious, then target the article concisely with well reasoned critiques. Honestly, is it really hard to demonstrate the stupidity of someone arguing *for* colonialism? Death threats strengthen the hand of the person targeted, even if their work is ultimately censored. This is an important prefix to my discussion of this book in question by Bill Warren, who was attempting to argue a similar case decades ago, as a Marxist scholar, but this time on the subject of 'imperialism'.

As such it is regarded as a highly controversial book, but as a polemical piece of writing, it brings a number of interesting dictums which still have serious ramifications in Marxist theory today. It is important to recognise that this book was published posthumously, so it was not complete by the time of Warren's death. The output should therefore be read as a series of largely completed musings, which could have been edited or revised more. Despite my disagreements, I respect Warren's contrarian attitude, particularly when dealing with a seriously contentious issue like colonialism. From my reading here are some of the main points addressed in the book are as follows. From each point, it will become clear why each can cause problems

1)- Warren argues that Marxists deviated from the original works of Marx, by adopting Lenin's ideas on imperialism as being the 'highest stage of capitalism' (https://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...). This deviation Warren argues was regressive, particularly when focusing on revolutionary activity, in potentially dismissing "progressive initiatives" in other countries, which could lead to class consciousness such as increased literary rates and educational reform, which means potential workers revolutions are critiqued and halted. Warren is almost taking on a Machiavellian approach to capitalism here. Capitalism can develop the productive forces just enough that workers can then take control and then undermine it. The problem here of course is to imply that the country in question is not "developed".

2)- Warren's problem in outright dismissing colonialism and imperialism blurs important differences between colonial/semi-colonial and neo-colonial conditions. So essentially a blurring of the terminology as a catch all term has been detrimental in reasoned analysis of the deleterious or otherwise effects of colonialism at different stages. There are different types of colonialism and they are all lumped into one single critique.

3)- Not all societies develop at the same pace and can register approximately the same achievements at any given time.

4)- He critiques ethnocentrism and eurocentiric ideas as being silly, or absurd.

5)- Marxists shouldn't "cavil at the thought that progress sometimes requires the use of force" which distinguishes Marxists from Prodhorn anarchists apparently- since Marxists noted that progress was likely to be painful. Thus, Marxists shouldn't be pacifists.

6)- The colonial project was supposedly free of widespread brutality: "This is especially true since the colonial record considering the immense numbers of people involved was remarkably free of widespread brutality" (128)

7)- In sum, Marxist analysis needs to move away from motivations and focus instead on effects. Thus ditch a moralistic deontological approach. The focus needs to be on outcomes, which is why Warren spends so much time highlighting the positive effects of British intervention in places like India.

8)- Marxist analysis preceding Warren's book (1980) focused on colonialism in terms of economic development. So think of the developmental theorists like Frank. Warren argues this is a mistake. Because it divorces material welfare and cultural transfer, as well as the intellectual and cultural foundations of advanced technology, organisation etc. Warren thus argues that to properly analyse the effects of colonialism, you need to focus on all of those factors. (128). Cultural transmission is thus a key point being advanced here. The British were also exporting democracy and their institutions.

"If we consider three of the elements of material welfare particularly favourable to long term expansion of the productive forces- health, education and the provision of new types of consumer goods- it will be seen that the colonial era far from initiating a reinforcing process of underdevelopment, launched almost from its inception a process of development, understood here in terms of improvements in material welfare that also constituted conditions for the development of the productive forces" (129)

9)- Warren notes that the most dramatic and significant and "conclusive proof of the advantages of Western colonisation" is the improvement in health brought about by the colonisers. "In nearly all cases, mortality rates were on the decline and population growth in unprecedented expansion within a few decades of the onset of colonial rule" (129-130). He notes in Africa for example in the 1950s and 1960s, for example when colonial rule ended in Africa, the population had increased several fold" this was a major change from pre colonial stagnation. "Involved here was not simply the prolongation of life but also the reduction of untold suffering from cruel ailments previously considered unavoidable from natural phenomena such as smallpox, diphtheria and tubercolosious"

[Ryan Salkoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very frustrating and challenging book, published in 1980, to read from the modern viewpoint of 2022. The author’s analysis and writing are thorough and precise, although the extensive footnotes are extremely distracting and disruptive to the overall flow of the arguments.

Part One: The Development of the Marxist theory of Imperialism is the stronger half of the book. It is fascinating to read about the concepts and theories of Marxism, capitalism and imperialism as they interacted with the ever changing policy needs during the Comintern years. The specific focus and attention paid to the development and evolution of Lenin’s position is excellent. It is also very thought-provoking to see how these concepts and theories get co-opted into different anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, nationalist political ideologies that inevitably do influence policy and the forward momentum of history.

Part Two: The Rise of Third World Capitalism and the Positive Role of Imperialism is unreadable and completely out of date from the vantage of 2022. This section has such an air of arrogance and unflinching faith in imperialism and capitalism (at least as they are necessary stepping stones to socialism from a Marxist viewpoint) that it seems possible that it could only be written by an academic from the West. This is a case where the author only sees the forest (aggregate GNP data, dismissal of individual outliers such as LDCs whose economies boomed because of oil, the availability of Western medical and industrial technology, etc.) without seeing the value of a single tree (widespread class and income inequality, “informal” economies that remain necessary due to poverty and capital / profit accumulation towards the upper classes). In fact, the author intends to fell each individual tree while still proclaiming the majesty of his forest. This is Western propaganda wrapped up in the bow of data, academia and scholarship.

I do not recommend this book to anyone.

[Hans Sandberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it in 1980 and remember it as an important inside critique of the marxist-leninist theory of imperialism.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in the nineties, after having first heard about it in the seventies. The summary I originally heard was fair. What I did not realise until I read it was that the argument makes perfect sense, stands Marxism on its head (if you are 'traditionally' left wing), indicates how 'Eurocommunism' arose, explains why the Trots kept Margaret Thatcher in power and these days calls into question the deeper motives of those who support unbridled Capitalism. And let's remember that Bill Warren died in 1978.

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lenins theories wrongly taught the third world that imperalism was a barrier to, not a source of, industrialization but all the "monopoly" stage of capitalism actually did was curtail price competition, the quality and quantity of commodities continued to increase and multinational corporations actually responded better to meeting all the basic needs than 19th century capitalism did... also before WWI commodity trade grew rapidly not capital exports.

The squandering of many of the benefits of Third World postwar economic development due to major policy blunders has failed to halt the gathering momentum of capitalist advance and associated material progress. Many of these blunders are now widely recognized by all schools of thought (including those ideological trends in development economics that promoted them in the first place), for example the neglect of agriculture in favour of industrialization and the pessimistic bias against the development of an exporting manufacturing sector and the over-valuation of exchange rates. The character of these errors (and their origin) suggests the nature of the underlying problem. Development economics in the 1950s and 1960s was rent by conflicting trends, and the one that favoured rapid industrialization. primarily for the home market as the first priority (Prebisch and Mahalanobis) became extremely influential. This approach was strongly influenced by the Soviet example of development through rapid industrialization, by Western liberal-egalitarian ideals, and by an anti-imperialist bent related to both Leninism, and liberalism (of the Hobson variety), which tended to regard underdevelopment as caused largely by the character of international economic relations between wealthy capitalist centres and the countries of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. For obvious reasons, this liberal-populist trend in development economics met with a warm response from the governments of many underdeveloped states.
But the main problem with the liberal-populist approach, which its proponents did not always face squarely, was that the economies with which they were concerned were developing in a capitalist direction, in most if not all cases irreversibly so, barring communist revolution. Explicit recognition of this fact would have permitted the promotion of a more efficient and humane capitalist development instead of the inappropriate imposition of a welfare approach and a Soviet-type model on countries lacking both the requisite advanced economic basis for the welfare state and the communist leadership required for the Soviet model.