Peak capitalism

Almost a century ago (1916), Lenin judged imperialism to be capitalism’s highest stage. The accumulation of capital could not restrain itself to the limits of national boundaries. It needed to exploit more and more of the Earth’s surface and inhabitants. And, considering the clash of empires that resounded throughout the 20^th century, Lenin’s analysis proved to be far-sighted. But he thought that the highest stage was about to end. He did not see that the numerous empires of his time would be progressively dominated by just one, and that the USA would play the part of ancient Rome. Imperium is not something that can be shared.

Using published statistics, Lenin demonstrated the coincidence between the expansion of finance, of trains and tracks and of colonial administration. Banks granted the credit, industry provided the steel and governments insured a return on investment, by forcing the natives to work in their colonies or by holding “independent” states to ransom. Imperial expansion brought confrontations, WW1, WW2 and the protracted low-intensity Cold War. It began as a war of nations and turned into an ideological divide, but the real struggle was capitalistic and financial. For the accumulation of wealth, national boundaries are a hindrance, ideology is ephemeral and violence is a means not an end.

Concerning capital, accumulation and expansion are consubstantial. But capital is privately owned, and its owners are members of a particular nation. It was the contest of expanding capitals that brought nations into conflict. To-day’s ownership is still private, but the owners are multinational, and the confrontation of expanding capitals no longer coincides with national identities. Capital has become supra-national. Nations cannot fight for one capital against another, as capital is no longer separated by national boundaries. This means that the only possible struggle is against capital as a whole. With a few exceptions (Iran, North Korea, Cuba, ?), wealth moves freely around the world, especially to tax havens. Rebelling against it is easily described as rebellion against its most representative symbol, the US. From there it can be caricatured as a war of fundamentalism against enlightenment. However, the insurgencies in the Hindu Kush, the Sahara and in other remote places are more like remnants of pre-capitalism (1) than the vanguard of a post-capitalist society.

The rule of private profits and public losses governs the world. And the immense private gains of the past three decades are a measure of the forfeit paid by society as a whole. Maintaining them would repeat past mistakes. But wealth, obtained by inheritance or by unscrupulous manoeuvres, is not abandoned easily. Its possessors will mobilise all their resources and apply all the old recipes. Demagogues will flatter the middle classes and separate them from labour. Governments will be pay-rolled and infiltrated, and their powers of constraint will serve their masters. But this is not 1933 or 1973. Then the world was subjected to media oligarchies, when it was not state monopolies, and had few if any alternative circuits. Then people were entranced by radio and TV. Information and ideas were transmitted top down and centre outwards. These structures still exist, but lateral transmissions are gaining ground. And centralised media are being reduced to the mildly chauvinistic niche of competitive events.

The printing press broke the Roman Church’s ideological monopoly. And the lateral communications of printed material brought an end to absolutism. Mass media restored it and its central control of thoughts. It was the absolutism of national empires and, having reached its global limits, it is confronted by a network that links everyone to everyone. Capitalism was built on the hierarchic and centralised model of a mechanical age. In the electronic age, it is as anachronistic as its imperialist dominion. Both are technologically redundant. Machinery determines the behaviour of those who use it. The original form was the sheer mechanical power that has shaped human thinking for generations. Pistons and turbines are extensions of muscles, whereas electronics are an extension of the mind. Muscles are material movements, the mind is immaterial memory. Mechanical tools are about moving things, electronic tools are about storing information. The two are compatible but, by intermediating the brute force and repetitiveness of machinery, digital technology is profoundly modifying the relationship that binds humans to their machines, thereby imposing a different perspective that is changing everything else.

The electronic point of view is unlike its mechanical counterpart. It surveys an immaterial multidirectional space. It has changed focus, from a central power source radiating out to the interconnections that set off chain reactions. When the beat of a butterfly’s wings counts, the heliocentric transposition no longer holds. The accumulation of capitalist wealth needs expansion. It must radiate out farther and farther. It is imperialist and centralised, and is based on the mechanical model of the past. It is trying desperately to adapt the electronic era, to make it conform to its rules. But this is its swan-song. Capitalism in its present form cannot survive in the internet age, just as feudalism could not resist the age of print.

1. Or, using McLuhan’s terminology, pre-literate and tribal. And it is accentuated by the post-literate age of electronic sound.