The Crisis of the Dictatorships. Nicos Poulantzas

       The Imperialist World Context

      The events that have taken place in Portugal and Greece, and the process now beginning in Spain, can only be properly grasped in terms of the new world context in which they are located: in other words, the new phase of imperialism, and its effects on the European countries. Within the European arena, Portugal, Greece and Spain in fact exhibit, if in different degrees, a characteristic type of dependence in relation to the imperialist metropolises, and to the United States as their dominant centre.

      It would be wrong to foist on these countries the traditional notion of ‘under-development’. By their economic and social structure, they are now part of Europe; their proximity is not only geographic, nor even predominantly so. Anticipating somewhat, we can even say that certain features of the new dependence that they present in relation to the United States and to the other European countries (the EEC) also characterize, in this new phase of imperialism, those European countries that themselves form part of the imperialist metropolises, in their own relationship to the United States. That does not mean that Portugal, Spain and Greece do not have a particular form of dependence; this is indeed a specific feature of the events that have taken place there.

      This specific form of dependence, which is a function of the particular history of these countries, has two aspects to it:

      – on the one hand, the aspect of an old-established primitive accumulation of capital, deriving in the Portuguese and Spanish cases from the exploitation of their colonies, and in the Greek case from exploitation of the Eastern Mediterranean, which distinguishes these countries from the particular type of dependence of other dominated countries;

      – on the other hand, the blockage, due to several reasons, of an endogenous accumulation of capital at the right time, which puts them right alongside other countries dependent on the imperialist metropolises in the present phase of imperialism; the new structure of dependence specific to this phase is thus of the highest importance.

      The principal characteristic in this respect is therefore the present phase of imperialism. Since the beginnings of imperialism, the relationships between national social formations (metropolitan countries/dominated and dependent countries) have been marked by the primacy of the export of capital over the export of commodities. Yet this definition is still too general; in actual fact, the export of capital plays a variable role, according to the phases of imperialist development, and this can only be understood in relation to the transformations of production relations and labour processes on the world scale.

      During earlier phases, in fact, export of capital from the imperialist countries to the dependent countries was chiefly bound up with the control of raw materials (extractive industries) and the extension of markets. In conjunction with this, the principal dividing line between the metropolitan countries and the dominated and dependent ones was still essentially that between industry and agriculture, or between town and country. Thus the capitalist mode of production that was dominant in its monopoly form in the imperialist metropolises and the imperialist chain as a whole, had not yet succeeded in incorporating and dominating the relations of production within the dependent countries themselves. Inside these countries, other modes and forms of production (the feudal mode of production, and the form of petty commodity production) displayed a remarkable persistence, even though suitably transformed by the penetration of capitalist relationships.

      This situation had substantial effects on the socio-economic structure of the countries involved, and even on their political structure: the preponderant and highly characteristic role of agriculture and the extraction of raw materials, combined with a marked delay in the process of industrialization, which has often been seen in terms of the incorrect notion of ‘under-development’. The consequence of this, on the side of the dominated classes, was: a) the numerical weakness and relatively slight social and political weight of the working class, in relation to the substantial weight of a peasantry still subordinated to precapitalist relations of production; b) the quite particular disposition of the petty bourgeoisie, within which could be distinguished an important traditional petty bourgeoisie in manufacture, handicrafts (small-scale production) and commerce, and the substantial weight of a state petty bourgeoisie (agents of the state apparatus) due to the parasitic growth of the state bureaucracy characteristic of this dependent situation. On the side of the dominant classes, this situation was manifested in a particular configuration of the power bloc, often denoted by the term ‘oligarchy’: big landed proprietors, whose weight was very substantial, allied to a characteristically comprador big bourgeoisie, whose own economic base in the country was weak, and who functioned chiefly as a commercial and financial intermediary for the penetration of foreign imperialist capital, being closely controlled by this foreign capital.

      The present phase of imperialism has seen major changes; the beginnings of these may be located in the immediate post-war years, though their consolidation and expanded reproduction began only in the 1960s. Capital export still serves for the control of raw materials and the extension of markets, but this is no longer its principal function. The principal function of the export of capital today essentially derives from the need for imperialist monopoly capital to valorize itself on the world scale by turning to profit every relative advantage in the direct exploitation of labour. What is involved here is a characteristic feature of the falling rate of profit tendency, and the new conditions in which an average rate of profit is established in the present world context. The drive to counter-act this tendency runs principally by way of the intensive exploitation of labour on a world scale (increase in the rate of exploitation in the form of relative surplus-value, by raising labour productivity, technological innovations, etc.). This involves the reproduction of capitalist relations of production actually within the dependent countries themselves, where these relations subordinate labour-power on an increasing scale, and it corresponds to both a prodigious socialization of labour processes and to a marked internationalization of capital on the world scale.

      These changes have important implications for the dependent countries, or at least for certain of their number; the foreign capital invested in them increasingly takes the form of direct investment in the sector of productive industrial capital. The share of this foreign capital that is invested in manufacturing industry is growing rapidly. The case that has attracted most attention here is that of the great multinational corporations, though this is only a limited index of the phenomenon. These multinationals are for the most part American, and in certain of the dependent countries they produce substantial portions of the finished products that they sell on the world market, because of the favourable costs of production there; alternatively they establish an entire stage of their overall production in dependent countries, or else assemble there finished products for local sale. This phenomenon, however, goes far beyond the particular case of the multinational corporations; the point is that the direction of foreign capital investments in these countries involves their labour processes in the capitalist socialization of these processes on the world scale.

      This new organization of the imperialist chain and its associated dependence, of which Greece and Spain are typical examples and Portugal only somewhat less so, substantially alters the internal socio-economic structure of the countries subjected to it. Their position as dominated and dependent countries no longer means simply a traditional division between them and the imperialist metropolises along the lines industry/agriculture; this dependence now precisely involves their industrialization under the aegis of foreign capital and at its instigation. Capitalist relations of production are reproduced on a massive scale within these countries themselves, subordinating labour-power while distorting, reorganizing and even hastening the dissolution of precapitalist relationships.

      It follows, therefore, that Spain and Greece have not ceased to be dominated and dependent countries, with Portugal following in their wake, because they have emerged from some so-called state of ‘under-development’ – contrary to what is maintained by the entire ‘development’ ideology. In their case, the domination and dependence that foreign imperialist capital inflicts on them are simply taking, on the whole, a new turn. It now involves the actual process of productive industrial capital and the labour processes that pertain to it at the international level. This is in fact the phenomenon of dependent industrialization,