The argument that the foreign market is required, in order to resolve the problem of realisation is, in any case, facile, as Lenin says, because the exported commodities are not given away gratis. In exchange for the exported commodities, other commodities are imported, which then poses the problem of how they can be sold? The mercantilists answered this by seeing the export of commodities exceeding the imports so that the difference is paid in gold, resulting in the accumulation of such reserves. The arguments of today's “anti-imperialists”, based upon ideas of “super-exploitation”, unequal exchange, and so on are just modern-day equivalents of those mercantilist theories, and of the economic romanticism of the Sismondists.
The issue is resolved by Malthus by the idea that the surplus should indeed be given away gratis, though he doesn't openly say that. Malthus says that the landed aristocracy, and its lackeys in the state fulfil a useful role, because, whilst they do not produce anything, they can consume a large part of the surplus, thereby, enabling the capitalist to realise the surplus value. However, Malthus does not explain how, precisely because the aristocracy and the state do not produce anything, and so have nothing to exchange for all of those commodities they consume, they would be able to buy them. The answer is, of course, that the landed aristocracy extracts rent, and the state extracts taxes, and both of these are deductions from surplus value. Malthus solution is then that the capitalist hand over rent and taxes with no equivalent value being given to them. The landlords and state then use these revenues to buy commodities from the capitalists, which amounts to the same thing as the capitalists simply handing over part of the surplus product to them, gratis in the first place! But, the same effect could then have been achieved by the capitalists themselves consuming that part of the surplus product unproductively.
Malthus solution is the same one proposed by Keynes a century later. Today it is dressed up in post-Keynesian garb, and in the form of MMT etc. It has also appeared in the form of the Permanent Arms Economy thesis, whereby this supposedly unrealisable surplus value has to be used for unproductive consumption by the state in the form of a huge production of weapons and means of destruction.
“The romanticist says: the capitalists cannot consume surplus-value and therefore must dispose of it abroad. The question is: do the capitalists supply foreigners with products gratis, or do they throw them into the sea? They sell them—hence, they receive an equivalent; they export certain kinds of products—hence, they import other kinds.” (p 162)
Modern day romanticists, amongst the “anti-imperialists” adopt the same stance as the Mercantilists and the Narodniks. They posit the relation in terms of unequal exchange, and “super-exploitation”, whereby, this surplus product is exported and the “neocolonial” country that provides the required market simply provides payment in money, which can accumulate in the imperialist economies. But, Lenin, also spells out the rejection of this argument too.
“If we speak of the realisation of the social product, we thereby exclude the circulation of money and assume only the exchange of products for products, since the problem of realisation consists in analysing the replacement of all parts of the social product in terms of value and in terms of material form. Hence, to commence the argument about realisation and to end it by saying that they “will market the product for money” is as ridiculous as answering the question about realising constant capital in the shape of articles of consumption by saying: “they will sell.” This is simply a gross logical blunder:” (p 162-3)
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