Even so, on the whole close commercial ties between nations tend to promote more peaceful relations between those nations. Do you deny that this is the case?
Sure, that’s not an absolute guarantee and one can point to exceptions.
I’m by no means certain that observations about war profiteering were all that original even in Lenin’s day. Heck, people were probably noticing centuries earlier that Sven the sword-maker got more business when his products were being used in battle and needed steady replacement.
Lenin’s pamphlet “Imperialism” describes old European colonial economic imperialism quite accurately and devastatingly. Modern corporate imperialism too. Don’t be fooled by the people who want to dismiss it because Lenin was a communist. His criticism of capitalism in “Imperialism” is as relevant as Adam Smith’s criticism of the immorality of unchecked capitalism in “Wealth of Nations”.
Unfortunately, his suggested remedies turned out to be worse.
My main cricism of Lenin is that he failed to have Stalin shot.
I’m not sure Trotsky would have been a more humane choice.
Stalin and Lenin have been often conflated, much to Lenin’s detriment. Stalin was hired to turn a potential socialist success and really bad example to the capitalist world into a reign of terror and oligarchical corruption. As noted above, Khrushchev was censoring Lenin’s socialist “errors” well into the Cold War. How convenient for “communist” and “capitalist” arms manufacturers and dealers. With a crazed UN shoe banging thermonuclear communist on the other end of the red phone, GM, GE and all the pork you can possibly employ looked pretty good to your average under-the-desk American.
Still does, near as I can tell by most of the posts here. Instead of desks, we have The Ministry Of Homeland Security and an aggressive foreign policy.
While true, I don’t believe that Trotsky had the type of paranoid personality traits to form a culture that would continue to weigh heavy on the USSR for thirty years after his death. shrug Could be wrong.
Even in Lenin’s time, he wasn’t opposed to eliminating political rivals and creating an atmosphere of oppression. Casting Stalin as the serpent is easy, but the garden was headed in that direction even without him.
No, Eisenhower warned of a “military-industrial complex” in which the military and industrial interests supporting the military, would foster fear, uncertainty, and doubt, manufacturing or amplifying international and interior threats in order to market and sell expensive and unneeded weapon system development and deployment, ultimately coming to be a dominant political force in its own right rather than to serve the ends of common defense of the nation. Ike was anti-Communist, but not fervently, irrationally so (he reluctantly took on Nixon as a running mate purely to get California, and undermined him at every turn), and correctly recognized that the fear of Soviet and Chinese Communism would be used to justify needless military adventurism. To that end, he favored tacit support (financial and political support of anti-Communist regimes, covert and counterintelligence operations) to direct action, and the use of strategic deterrence versus open confrontation with the Soviet Union, which, ironically, ended up creating an even larger military-industrial complex in support of the “nuclear triad” than conventional weapons manufacture. Ike never trusted Diem and Nhu in Vietnam and supported them only because there was no better option, an opinion that carried over to the Kennedy administration. (There are credible claims that Kennedy had Diem assassinated, although Robert McNamara reports that Kennedy reacted with genuine surprise and shock upon learning of Diem’s death, and Diem’s murder and subsequent power vacuum led to a much wider war and open popular support for the National Liberation Front.)
Lenin, far from being “the tits” implemented and provided the dogmatic basis for a system of governance that was brutal, dehumanizing, and corrupt to the core. Marxism-Leninism used pseudoscientific philosophy used to justify with absolution a large number of human rights abuses, distortions or fabrications of historical, fiscal, and scientific facts, and generally created the largest and most destructive political and military force in modern history.
It should be noted that free market capitalism is to European colonialist exploitation as asking a girl to the Sunday ice cream social is to predatory sexual assault. There was nothing “free market” or “laissez-faire” about the monopolistic cartels which were chartered by various nations to enter into colonies, use the native population as slave labor, take natural resources and land without compensation, and administrate governance and security in a manner which maximized profits rather than provided fair and equal representation under lawful authority. Lightly moderated free market enterprise has demonstrated a clear advantage to the cultures that have practiced it in terms of the value it provides and its responsiveness to consumer demand. One need only look at, say, the car manufactures or consumer appliances of various nations to see that this is the case. Of course, when commercial interests gain significant political power and are able to use this to squeeze out competition or suck from the public teat without accountability, it is not longer a free market condition of any source; you effectively end up with government-subsidized industries that are little different from any manufacturing bureau of a centrally-planned socialist government. It was this that Ike was cautioning against with Cassandra-esque foresight.
Lenin was bollocks.
Stranger
Given absolute or near-absolute power that can only be maintained though terror, probably anybody would start getting squirrely after a few years.
By year 10 of Bryanism, I’ve no doubt that banning polka dots by edict will seem a necessary and perfectly rational move for the good of the state.
Modern corporate imperialism? Spare me the Altermondiste tripe. Lenin’s pamphlet is nothing more than sad Leftist agitprop. It is neither accurate nor “devestating.”
Right, spot on mate… Oh wait, utter tripe.
Spot on.
That’s not what he said exactly. He said that the military industry has become a dominant political force in its own right. This influence exists, and isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we need to make sure that this influence doesn’t subvert democracy or individual liberty.
I’m not clear how, or indeed, that, we are in disagreement.
Stranger
I state that it has no bearing whatsoever.
After all, in the case of raw materials, it can cause
wars.
Witness WW2, Japan, & oil.
So you’ve read it then?
You made the claim that Eisenhower warned that America had to stop the creation of a military industrial complex that would become a dominant political force, because the existence of a military industrial complex would threaten the country.
I made the claim that Eisenhower said that a military industrial complex already exists and is a dominant political force, and that he warned that America had to make sure that the military industrial complex doesn’t use its influence for bad purposes.
Well, there is probably a case that natural resource extraction based easily tend to conflictual, but close merchant trading I would submit tends to build deeper common interests.
Nothing, of course, is magic.
(as to the Question, yeah, I have a whole shelf of Marxist literature. Back in the days when the Sovs still were around, such things had some interest)
For what it’s worth, I agree with your latter statement rather than your interpretation of my statement, so I clearly failed to convey my intent.
Stranger
Jeez, you say that as if it was a bad thing.