Groucho Marxism

For Karl Marx, economics was not a subject to be studied for its own sake. He was interested in how it affected society and the lives of people in it. Marx never published any theory of imperialism, although he did make reference to colonialism. Today, Marxists define imperialism as the state of capitalism that occurs when colonialism has taken over the world. This definition comes from Lenin’s work Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. The term imperialism is also used by Marxists to describe a powerful nation acting at the expense of a lesser powerful one. What these definitions have in common is that they involve some form of exploitation. Although he published no theory of imperialism, Marx was well aware of it as he lived for most of his life in London, the heart of the British Empire.

Historians tend to divide the imperialist era into two periods. The first is the period of mercantile capitalism, which began in the 16th century and involved large companies governing foreign countries. The second is the period of colonialism, which involved countries taking over governing power from these companies. Marx and Engels wrote a great deal about Britain in relation to its most profitable colony, India. The British East India Company already had a long history before Marx began to write about it, having been founded in the year 1600. More generally, Marx saw the globalization of capitalism as inevitable. He believed that profits would tend to fall and that capitalists would seek to arrest this decline by opening up new markets overseas.

Marx was proved correct towards the end of the 19th century as the US, Britain, and other European countries flooded the world market with cheap goods. However capitalism was not allowed to develop in other countries as they were deliberately held back in order to prevent them from competing with the western powers. Marx believed that revolution would only take place globally once the capitalist system had been exported to every country around the world. In his view the revolutionary process will have two stages. First, there will be a ‘bourgeois revolution’ against imperialism, which would allow capitalism to develop on countries where it hasn’t been allowed to develop before. Then, and only then, will there be a global revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

The first part of Marx’s prediction was vindicated in the middle of 20th century as revolts in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America removed direct foreign rule. To put this into context: in 1940, the British Empire spanned roughly a fifth of the world’s land area and held a quarter of its population, encompassing over 500 million people across all continents of the world. Today, the British Empire no longer exists aside from 14 overseas territories such as Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands, which hold well under 1 million people between them. It would be fair to say that the British Empire collapsed, although the decline is rarely described that way in Britain. This collapse was spurred to a large extent by the rise of nationalist movements in the colonies.

We are now at the stage where capitalism is the default mode of production in all but a handful of countries around the world. If Marx is to be believed – and his predictions have turned out to be correct so far – the next stage is a global proletarian revolution. However a synchronized global revolution seems highly unlikely at this point due to deeply fragmented national interests, powerful state policing, and ideological divides between nations. Whilst global stressors like economic inequality and resource scarcity cause widespread friction, we currently lack a unified international coalition or shared vision that would be required to overthrow global systems all at once. So how might we go about establishing such a coalition?

There is no single switch to flip here. In general, though, global movements grow when people connect local struggles, use creative communication, and withdraw cooperation from unjust systems. The first step is to identify a universal pain point. Luckily capitalism provides us with a lot of these! An obvious contender is climate change, but this may be too abstract for most people (although perhaps not now, with global temperatures spiking). A better contender, I think, is economic inequality, as this directly and obviously affects peoples’ material conditions. The next step is to spread a clear message, using digital media, art, and humour to make the message simple, viral, and hard to ignore. We also need to build a shared understanding of why the current system fails and how change is possible.

The revolution must be built from the ground up, starting with grassroots groups and trade unions. However we must also connect globally, using cross-border digital platforms to share tactics, resources, and solidarity with parallel movements in other countries. We can also use strategic strikes, economic boycotts, and public demonstrations to disrupt the pillars of support that keep unjust systems in power. Of course a global revolution is not going to happen tomorrow, even if we do all these things; it might not even happen in my lifetime. One thing is sure though: it won’t happen if we don’t work to make it happen. It may seem a futile effort at times. But if we continue to apply pressure to the rotten capitalist system then at some point, inevitably, the dam will burst.