Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 . INTRODUCTION
were symbolic at best, the iron and steel industry passed under the
tutelage of the steel users through credit-and-delivery contracts, with only
few exceptions.
Accordingly, in the USA, a high value of labour power dialectically
brought about mass production of consumer goods, upsetting the structure
of profit distribution that had developed around railway financing and
production . Eliminating the excessive power of Wall Street high finance,
the New Deal introduced state intervention with respect to the circulation
of money capital, hence, to the level of industrial activity and real wages ;
in the previous period this articulation had been left to the bankers and
industrial capitalists themselves .
Through the Marshall Plan, the conditions for relative surplus value
production and intensive accumulation were exported to Western Europe .
One aspect of the Schuman Plan of May, 1950, was the belated subjugation of the European iron and steel industry to the assembly industries .
In the European Coal and Steel Community, the cartel-prone European
iron and steel branch and the profit distribution structure connected with
it, hence the "heap of passive sedimentations" (Gramsci) that underlay its
support for fascism, were restructured so as to conform to the American
model .
Still, even when the conditions for a mass market had been established, the EEC was not to become a mere imitation of the USA . Rather,
it provided a context in which the 'old' and the 'new' class and profit
structures were being reproduced in a contradictory fashion . On the one
hand, the EEC has been an effective extension of a continuous mass
market, originating in the USA . On the other hand, it has operated as a
protectionist bloc in its own right, centering around a Franco-German
axis seeking to preserve an exclusive sphere of influence in Western Europe
and Africa .
As was indicated above, different fractions of the bourgeoisie have
been associated with these contradictory tendencies . Their political preeminence has been closely related to American initiatives in the field of
free trade and capital movements to create favourable conditions for the
accumulation of capitals in their orbit.
3 . INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CAPITAL AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE
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11
the rise of the USA as the most vital centre of capitalism that was associated with capitalism's need to overcome the structures of rentier imperialism in order to survive. Of course, Churchill and Eden proved to be
uneasy allies in this process .
Behind all American activist thinking during the war-whether it pertained to creating stable social structures or stable international arrangements-loomed the need for markets . "We will have a capital equipment
industry nearly twice the size which would be needed domestically under
the most fortuitous conditions of full employment and nearly equal to the
task of supplying world needs", it was stated in a report of one of the
several study groups that tackled the problem (quoted in Eakins 1969,
p . 156) . However, the American initiative to shape an open Atlantic
economy in which the US output of means of production could enter as
an element of an integrated circuit of capital, could only be expected to
succeed when capitalism was seriously challenged in Europe .
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loans and credits from the Americans, European ruling coalitions were
orientated towards national reconstruction and were not very receptive to
American penetration . In the words of the Kolkos : "Western Europe's
recovery was a matter of time . Ironically, this rehabilitation, especially in
France and in the lowlands, was not only largely internally generated but
also proceeding in a distinctive, self-contained manner that diminished the
United States' role and posed a major danger to America's plans for a
reformed world capitalism ." (Kolko & Kolko 1972, p . 163) . Confronted
with the threat of an independent recovery with a protectionist bent and
Communist participation, the Truman administration launched the
Marshall Plan . Developments in both the USA and Europe had made the
need to secure the labour reserves and markets of Western Europe for the
benefit of American capital acute . On both sides of the Atlantic, class
relations were upset by the threat of impending crisis .
In the US, the policies of the Truman government reflected the
weaker basis for activism as compared to the New Deal period . Measures
that were proposed in the fields of domestic reform and foreign involvement had to be inserted in a Cold War context to have them enacted, as
the American upper and middle classes were frightened both by the increased strike activity that reminded them of the labour radicalism of the
thirties, and by the interplay of world-wide social upheaval and the expansion of a Soviet sphere of influence .
Owing to cheap plant in basic industries (cf. above) and to pent-up
demand for consumer goods, the new industrial system in the US had
easily adapted to peace-time conditions, and the rise in living standards
seemed to make a Red Scare irrelevant. Still, anti-labour sentiment was
strong, and in 1946, a Republican majority in Congress was elected on an
anti-labour, anti-taxation platform . This resulted, among other things, in
the promulgation of the highly restrictive Taft-Hartley act . Through this
measure, with its provisions against real or alleged communist union
leaders, the remaining political sting was to be taken out of working class
organizations.
As far as Western Europe was concerned, the adoption of a mass
market, consumer-oriented capitalist economy seemed to be the only
answer to the severe crisis at the time . To stem the upsurge of popular
discontent and Communist electoral successes, a dramatic initiative on the
part of the Free World was mandatory . Indeed, the integrationist
bourgeois leadership that had worked with the Communists up to that
time was losing control of the Communists as the Communists themselves
lost control of the working masses who had voted for them, but who now
demanded solutions to the food shortages and rising costs of living .
Marshall Aid provided the solution .
A free trade and payments offensive, coinciding with a violent attack
on militant working class strongpoints in trade unions and the state and an
offensive posture vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, the Marshall Plan was instrumental in bringing European reconstruction along national lines to a standstill . The devaluations, the dumping of agricultural surpluses, the installation of industrial equipment which would be efficient only if trade was
expanded dramatically (like the wide-strip mills in the steel industry), as
13
well as the loss of communist support, tore apart the class basis of the
governments of national unity where they had existed . Aside from the
Marshall Plan, the position of the national, protectionist industrial bourgeoisies was further undermined by loss of colonial monopolies, because
the colonial market and a raw material reservoir of their own had been
crucial considerations in most reconstruction' plans, national as well as
'European' (often British-sponsored plans for joint exploitation of the
colonies) .
On the other hand, though it eliminated many a small rentier, the
absorption of the former colonial empires into a wider 'free world' under
American hegemony and protection, offered an opportunity for colonial
capital either to repatriate to the metropolitan areas or to resettle in comparable tropical areas . In the case of the French Banque de /'Indochine for
instance, its assets in 1931 were still concentrated between 80 and 90% in
South East Asia ; in 1953, it had redistributed its investments towards
Western Europe (32%), the Western Hemisphere (26%) and Africa (27%)
with only 18% left in Indo-China . In the process, however, the bank had to
associate itself with Schneider/Union europeene .
It could be expected that representatives of these groups would favour
free trade and capital movements more than other fractions of capital, and
they did . Edmond Giscard d'Estaing, prominent banker in the Indochine
group, was president of the French section of the European League for
Economic Cooperation (ELEC), the highly influential liberal wing of the
European Movement ; his son Valery, married to the granddaughter of E .
Schneider, likewise has been a consistent champion of liberalism .
Meanwhile, on the economic plan, these same interests were the main
beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan as far as private capital was concerned
(the greater part of the Marshall funds was channeled into the public
sector, especially for power generating equipment, and further consisted
of payments for agricultural surpluses and subsidies for productivity programmes) . In France, Schneider, Simca (at the time, associated with Ford)
and SOLLAC (the wide-strip mill of Lorraine steel capital, associated with
the Morgan group as well as with the banks and industrial firms later to
regroup into the Suez alliance) together got almost five times the amount
that was received, as an additional credit, by USINOR, the wide-strip mill
of Northern steel, which was associated with the Banque de Paris et des
Pays-Bas and hence, with the more national approach .
Of course a comprehensive account of the economic and political
effects of the Marshall Plan cannot be given here . But the pattern was very
much alike in all countries involved . In the Netherlands, Hoogovens iron
and steel works got the bulk of the dollar grants to private industry, again
to build a wide-strip mill . But not only the industrial bulwarks of the
liberal bourgeoisie of colonial origin (Hoogovens was associated with
Royal Dutch/Shell and with the foremost colonial and shipping bank,
NHM-today's Algemene Bank Nederland) were reinforced . Also, the
liberals returned to the cabinet in 1948 . It was the new liberal foreign
minister Stikker (of Heineken and the NHM) who in the OEEC proposed
to liberalize intra-European trade a few days after Schuman had made
public his coal and steel plan . In Italy, an orthodox banker, Einaudi, was
c.&( .9-
14
15
pp . 55, 65/66) .
But in 1952, Senator Tom Connally, in a report on Western Europe,
saw European integration in more positive, if isolationist, terms .
Integration should serve, in his opinion, "to see Europe strong enough
eventually to stand on her own feet . To permit integration in the military
and economic fields to become effective, there must be . . . some kind of
political federation which should of course be shaped by the Europeans
themselves" (quoted in Beloff 1963, p . 96) . Moreover, according to the
same source, in the economic field the American government had already
become less interested in working at Atlantic arrangements by the last
year of the Truman administration .
In this context, Dulles' threat of an "agonizing reappraisal" of
American support if the EDC failed to be ratified, contrasted sharply with
the conception that had been behind the Berlin airlift-and that would be
behind Kennedy's appearance at the Berlin Wall . It prompted the European states almost by default to take an aggressive stand on their own,
meant to be directed against the communist East, but because of the specific class configuration at the time, stimulating a last try at empire
instead . With Suez, interimperialist strife reached a high point .
As far as American class relations were concerned, the cutbacks in
foreign aid had had their counterpart in reduced domestic spending . With
the Republican government, Hoover seemed to step back on the stage and
with him, laissez-faire economics . Having been elected with strong conservative and Southern middle class support, the abandoning of economic
controls had been one of the first measures of Eisenhower in 1953 . Likewise, government enterprises were sold or closed down, almost up to the
sale of the Tennessee Valley Authority which Eisenhower personally
favoured but ruled out as "going too far" (Degler 1968, p . 87) . Labour
was handled by economic policy much more than by the carrot-and-stick
policies of Truman's and McCarthy's days. The cutback in state expenditure from 1953 onwards, supervised by the Secretary of the Treasury,
Humphrey, increased unemployment. Strike activity fell back from 59
million workdays in 1952 to an average of about 25 million until 1959 .
In Europe, on the other hand, the relative disengagement of the USA
from its affairs provoked a resurgence of the right wing of Western European politics as much as the Marshall Plan had stimulated its orientation
towards a mass-market economic and social order .
Thus, the Messina Conference of 1955, which laid the foundations for
the EEC, was characterized by what Spaak in his Memoirs calls "a certain
degree of confusion" (Spaak 1971, pp . 228/9) . On the one hand, its final
resolution still reflected the impact of the Marshall Plan where it spoke of
agreement on "the establishment of a European common market free from
16
17
go into three questions that have remained unanswered, but which are
relevant to further discussion .
The first question has already been touched upon in the introduction .
It concerns the role of NATO, and military strategy in American activism .
Here the Atlantic offensive of the Kennedy administration can be taken as
an example . In this case, too, the need to revitalise the domestic economy
was at the root of the offensive international stand . In the words of the
economist, Walter Heller : "The nation's lagging growth rate and frequent
recessions had been the prime campaign issues in the 1960 election . . .
The need to 'get the country moving again' remained at the centre of the
Kennedy Administration's concern after it took office ." (Heller, 1968) .
Internationally, an attack on the protectionism of the EEC was
mandatory not only to find markets for increased production : "A
lowering of the (EEC) common external tariff should reduce the incentive
for American firms to establish branches in Europe and thus help stanch
the outward flow of capital from the United States" (Evans 1967, pp . 5/6) .
American conservatism in the preceding period, however, not only
provoked EEC protectionism . The continentalist bourgeoisies of Europe
for obvious reasons also had developed a desire to organize their military
potential on a regional basis . In particular ideas of a European nuclear
force were circulating and being championed, among others, by the
German defence minister, Strauss . The French demanded the establishment of a joint nuclear directorate within NATO .
The Kennedy administration actively sought to counteract these
tendencies . Skilfully using the proposals for a multilateral nuclear force it
had inherited from the Eisenhower government, it tried to reintegrate its
European allies in NATO . The Nassau agreement of 1962 with the MacMillan government was the first, if comparatively easy, success in this
respect .
Hence, when in the EEC countries the Europeanist ruling coalitions
were being replaced by a liberal tendency in the course of 1962/'63, the
renewed allegiance to NATO played its role alongside the Atlantic free
trade conjuncture and economic liberalism .[7] Only France became
increasingly isolated, eventually suspending its participation in both the
EEC and NATO during 1965/'66 . Still, even here, Atlantic liberalism made
itself felt as from 1962 to 1966, when he was replaced by Debre, Giscard
d'Estaing held the important post of minister of finance .
The second question relates to the periodization from the mid-sixties
on . How did the overall balance of forces between the imperialist powers
develop ; what are the limits of American supremacy? It seems to me that
the Kennedy episode already revealed the problem of capital moving to
Europe and the political consequences of this trend for the balance of
forces in the Atlantic area and the world . This problem was aggravated
from 1966 onwards .
Domestically, the Kennedy offensive had been based on a careful
"policy mix" of increased government spending (social and foreign aid,
military expenditure) and a policy of easy money, to facilitate credit for
private industrial expansion . However, in December 1965 the Federal
Reserve, in order to stem inflation and defend the value of the dollar,
18
raised the rate of interest despite the opposition of the government (which
had become Johnson's, in the meantime) (De Brunhoff 1976, pp . 72ff.) .
When the president persisted in applying the economic programs inherited
from the Kennedy platform even to the point of introducing a ban on
private direct investment of American capital in Europe, the conflict
between finance capital and the Democratic government became an aspect
of the presidential elections of 1968 that brought Nixon to power (Davidson/Weil 1970, p . 63) .
At first, Nixon's economic policy consisted of the expected cutbacks
in state expenditure and related monetary measures . But from 1971 onwards, his conservatism took on a more narrow and aggressive quality .
Confronted with the decline of American economic hegemony,
Nixon tried to recapture a competitive position for American capital by
his famous dollar coup in the summer of that year . This blunt abandoning
of accepted rules of conduct (and of IMF and GATT obligations),
however, was branded as dangerous and isolationist by the representatives
of American finance capital and European liberals (the former deserting
the Nixon government in protest), and actually provoked the formation of
the Trilateral Commission with its stress on internationalism and free trade
and capital movements (Frieden 1977) .
Yet, even before the Trilateral Presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter,
was elected, a liberal, Atlanticist tendency took over in France and
Germany in 1974 . Today, for the first time since 1945, class formation in
the USA seems to be reflecting strategies of international capital originating from a European context rather than vice versa, as can be seen in
the fight over Carter's energy program . The proposed European Monetary
System likewise seems to indicate that international capital has found its
champion in the liberal, free market bourgeoisie of Western Europe and is
seeking to make the Americans respond to the liberal call from Europe
rather than the other way round . Of course, further research and analysis
are mandatory as to the real nature of these developments .
The last question to be looked at briefly relates to working class
strategy . As the reader may have concluded already, the understanding of
the position and role of the working class in the international class configuration as analysed in this paper, poses a very difficult problem . On the
one hand, Atlantic liberalism affects the workers in the countries involved
in a variety of ways, even including the loss of union freedom to negotiate
wages and working conditions, which was supposed to be a characteristic
of corporatist or 'Fordist' strategies of European capital . On the other
hand, right-wing governments of the latter inspiration have sometimes
introduced free wage negotiations, contrary to the schem . suggested in the
introduction .
At the ideological level, the picture is also rather contradictory .
Certainly, activism as an offensive posture of international capitalism has
inspired not only the bourgeoisie with new confidence in the viability of
the mode of production . The benefits of enhanced intensive accumulation
and relative surplus value production have also tended to foster reformist
tendencies among the working class . "The reformist ideology", Claudin
writes, "secreted organically by the system's capacity to develop the pro-
19
NOTLS
This paper is a revised version of my contribution to the CSE Annual
Conference at Bradford, July 1978 . It further develops the argument of
my book, In lmericun Plan for Europe (in Dutch, Amsterdam 1978)
which is based on research in progress at the Department of International
Relations, University of Amsterdam, Hercngracht 508 . Many thanks to
Simon Clarke for his assistance in preparing the final version of this paper .
1
C/ . for example Nairn's The Lett uyuinst Europe (Harmondsworth
1973), or from quite another angle, Picciotto & Radice in Kapiluli,lute 1/1973 .
2
In a recent Dutch study on the bourgeois state it is argued that
"interimperialist antagonisms as well as the domestic fractioning of
the bourgeoisie find their political expression in the 'national' power
bloc ; accordingly, there will be connecting lines between the antagonisms occuring within different 'national" power blocs" (Sturman
1978, p . 352, my translation) .
3
I am referring specifically to the French Communist Party's version o
of the theory, cf. Collectif PCF, 1971 . A striking example of an international reorientation being analysed as an outcome of national class
struggle (May 1968) is in Vol . II, p . 183 .
It should be stressed, however, that there are many varieties of the
theory of State monopoly capitalism, some of which are more sophisticated than others . The work of Herzog in France and theories developed in the GDR are examples of this, cf. Wirth 1972.
20
6
7
"Classes arc large groups of people differing from each other by the
place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law)
to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of
labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social
wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it . Classes are
groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another
owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of
social economy" (Lenin, Collected Works 29, p .421) .
To mention only two such indicators : Menshikov (1975, p. 43) found
three periods in which the increase of production in the USA was
based chiefly on the growth of investment in fixed capital : 1947/'48,
1953/'57 and 1960/'65 . The average annual growth of production for
the second period, however, was only 2 .2% for the other two, 5 .9%
and 4 .9% respectively . Secondly, according to a recent Brookings
Institution study by B. M . Blechman and S . S . Kaplan, Force Without
War, US Armed Forces as a Political Instrument, American armed
interventions were most numerous in two periods : 1946/'48 (on the
average 8 a year), and 1960/'65 (15 a year) .
Statement by an official of General Motors Export Cy ., quoted in
Gardner 1971 (1964), p . 25 . On the interests supporting Roosevelt,
cf. Schwarz (ed .) 1969 .
In Germany, the conservative triangle of Adenauer-Brentano-Strauss
(the latter by means of the 'Spiegel' affair) was replaced by the Atlantic combination Erhard-Schroder-Hassel . In the SPD there was the
rise of Willy Brandt, who personified the break-away of his party from
the neutralist stance of Schumacher's days, and who as mayor symbolically stood by when Kennedy pronounced his citizenship of West
Berlin at the Wall . In the Netherlands, the reactionary government of
the Catholic and wartime collaborator De Quay was replaced by a
government in which the liberal tendency was considerably reinforced . Also in 1963, the first centre-left government of Italy was
sworn in as part of a liberal solution to contradictions arising out of
the exports boom. Etc ., etc . For the backgrounds of the MacMillan
government in these terms, cf. Overbeek 1978, a revised version of
which will appear in Capital and Class 10.
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Althusser, L., 1969, For Marx, London .
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Claude, H ., 1968, Histoire, realite et destin dun monopole : la banque de
Paris et des Pays-Bas et son groupe (1872-1968), Paris .
Claudin, F ., 1975 (1970), The Communist Movement. From Comintern to
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Collectif PCF, 1971, Le capitalisme monopoliste d'Etat, Paris .
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York/London .
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21
Evans, J . W ., 1967, US Trade Policy. New Legislation for the Next Round,
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