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The Missing link: the Views of the Second International School of Thought on Development, Underdevelopment and Dependency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Marc Michielsen
Affiliation:
(Belgium)

Extract

In the long run, no country can avoid capitalism. No matter how bad the condition of the lower classes in a country in which they are defenselessly subjugated to the capitalist mode of production, they would still be worse off in a country that is economically under the spell of capitalist exploitation, whereas the ruling system does not give capitalist production the opportunity to arise; in a country where the population is proletarianized by the usurer, the merchant and by foreign competition, and where this proletariat cannot be absorbed by nascent big industries and cannot be gradually prepared for resistance against capitalism. The example of such a country is nowadays Turkey, and the Philippines will arrive at the same situation if the Spanish regime continues for a long time.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1990

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References

Notes

1 Brewer, Antony, Marxist Theories of Imperialism (London 1980) 127.Google Scholar

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8 The Second International existed between the years 1889 and 1923. The hey-day of this school of thought can be situated between the years 1896 and 1918. The activities of the school centered around Die Neue Zeit, which was at that time the world's leading Marxian scientific review. For more details, see my dissertation: Marc Michielsen, ‘Empires, impérialismes, sous-devéloppement et relations internationales: Hobson, l'école de la lie Internationale, Lénine et la théorie de l'impérialisme (1897–1918)’ (Unpublished Ph.D.-thesis; Louvain-la-Neuve 1988).

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28 Proposals and Drafts of Resolutions with Explanatory Reports Submitted to the International Socialist Congress ofStuttgart (18–24 August 1907). International Socialist Bureau (Brussels s.d.) 510, reprinted in: Congrès sodaliste international - Stuttgart 18–24 août 1907 (Genève 1978) 510;Google ScholarKautsky, , Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik - Eine Auseinandersetzung, 29;Google ScholarHilferding, Rudolf, Das Finanzkapital (Wien 1910) 405Google Scholar.

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32 Ibidem, 55–60/91–96.

33 Ibidem, 82/118.

34 Septiéme congres sodaliste international lenu à Stuttgart du 18 au 24 août 1907, compte rendu analytique. Bureau socialiste international (Bruxelles 1908) 314, reprinted in: Haupt, Georges ed., Congiès sodaliste international - Stuttgart 18–24 août 1907 (Geneva 1980) 644Google Scholar.

35 Van Kol and some rightist Socialists have argued that the road to Socialism led through capitalism and colonial policy. Kautsky rejected this point of view. Even if one could not escape capitalism, one did not have to pass by the same stages to arrive at a higher level of development (Proposals and Drafts of Resolutions with Explanatory Reports Submitted to the International Sotialist Congress of Stuttgart (18–24 August 1907), 56–57).

36 Ibidem, 76–77.

37 Kautsky, , Handelspolitik and Sozialdemokratie, 4546.Google Scholar

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56 The same thing can be said of Davis and Huttenback's recent book Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire. Intended as a critique of the theories of Hobson and Lenin, O'Brien demonstrated that the book rather confirms than invalidates Hobson's thought. (See: Davis, Lance E. and Huttenback, Robert A., Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire (London 1986);Google ScholarO'Brien, Patrick K., ‘The Costs and Benefits of British Imperialism 1846–1914’, Past and Present (08 1988) 163200)Google Scholar.