In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Interrogating "Newness":Globalization and Postcolonial Theory in the Age Of Endless War
  • Kanishka Chowdhury (bio)

Everywhere war finds material enough for imperialistic desires and conflicts; creates new material to feed the conflagration that spreads outlike a prairie fire.

—Rosa Luxemburg

Recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq lead us to return once again to Lenin's fundamental question in his essay "Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism": "We ask, is there under capitalism any means of removing the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of profit on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the other side—other than by resorting to war?" (98).1 Clearly, there are many ways to approach Lenin's question, posed as European powers were bringing their forces together for a cataclysmic war. It is important to remember, for instance, that he had written on this subject almost twenty years earlier in his essays "On the So-Called Market Question" and "A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism." In these essays, he had undertaken a defense of Marx's theory of accumulation and had tried to demonstrate the expansive nature of capitalism. For Lenin, capitalist states could not exist without foreign markets, and expansion outside national limits was an essential condition for growth and accumulation. In this scenario of ever-expanding capital, war remained an inextricable part of the capitalist project.

There have, of course, been many critical responses to Lenin's theory of imperialism, and one could claim that the stress he placed on intercapitalist rivalries is no longer appropriate in the present age; [End Page 126] these days, the G8 countries appear to be largely united in their exploitation of Third World resources and labor. It is also possible, however, to detect cracks within this apparent unity of purpose: for instance, French and Russian resistance to the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq had little to do with antiwar sentiments and much more to do with the politics of wealth distribution and the balance of regional influence. Likewise, the occasional maneuverings between the European Union and the United States certainly mimic earlier struggles between power blocs. It can therefore be argued that the world is divided into spheres of influence, much as it was in the early twentieth century, the key difference being that the elite of the so-called South have become participants in the plunder.2 Obviously I am not claiming an undifferentiated twentieth-century imperialist space here with temporal and spatial categories left intact, but one that must be understood through the inevitable adjustments made by capital.3

However, I would like to address the relevance of Lenin's theory of imperialism and war not so much in light of the arguments of his contemporaries (Kautsky, Luxemburg, and others) or simply as a continuation of previous discussions regarding late capitalism but within the context of the new designation of our age: globalization. One does not have to read very deeply in Marx to understand that our own age is, to some extent, characterized but not distinguished by the bourgeoisie's relentless drive for profits and open markets. The supranational ruling class, held together primarily by U.S.-driven interests, has successfully masked the scope and scale of this global pillage by affixing the term globalization as the logic of the new age. The obvious term that has been elided from this logic, of course, is the adjective "capitalist." I want to argue that Lenin's theory of endless war should still play a vital part in our evaluation of capitalist globalization. As Lenin argued, endless war must be understood within the context of the economic financialization of the globe, and here I refer not only to currency regulations, IMF-backed structural adjustment programs, and so-called free trade agreements but also to the ever-present potential for military intervention as a disciplinary option; war, either as Lenin described it in the early-twentieth-century European theater or as it occurs now, may not be necessary in the first instance for capitalist readjustments, but it remains a haunting specter within the fabric of globalization. Indeed, the current "war on terror...

pdf

Share