In just the same way that capitalist competition led to the destruction of all the old feudal vestiges and idiocies, and formed national markets and nation states, and, then, as it continued, led to the formation of ever larger concentrations of capital in monopolies and trusts, within which competition was regulated, so its continued development led to the need for even larger markets, to support even larger-scale production, and so the replacement of the nation state, which had become a reactionary fetter on the development of capital, with ever larger, multinational states, like the EU. The rational form of capital, in the era of imperialism, is the multinational state. The interests of British capital, now, resided in the need to be a part of the EEC/EU, and both main bourgeois parties – Tory and Labour – came to represent that interest, as did the British state.
A section of social-democracy, associated with Stalinism clung to the ideas of reactionary nationalism, based upon the concept of “Socialism In One Country”, or, more correctly described, in its actual programmes, as “Social-Democracy In One Country”. The roots of these reactionary, nationalist ideas sprung from a number of sources.
Firstly, the reactionary, petty-bourgeois Socialism of Sismondi, described by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto, which, in contrast to the ideas of Marx and Engels, set out above, sought to present any rational development of capital as something that socialists should oppose.
Secondly, the role of statism in the socialist movement, going back to Lassalle and the Fabians, again, opposed by Marx and Engels, as set out in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, and elsewhere. Statism, is necessarily chauvinistic. The term “nationalisation”, does what it says; it puts the given capital under the control of the given capitalist nation state. It is, merely, an extension of the principles of protectionism, described by Marx and Engels, in the writings on free trade, seeking to protect the interest of that “national” capital, at the expense of other national capitals, and, thereby, of the workers of other countries.
But, as Marx and Engels describe, that protectionism, whether in the form of protective tariffs etc., or protected markets, as established by colonialism, or in the form of nationalisation by the capitalist state, works, also, against the interests of the workers in the given country too. As Engels put it,
“Now, the formation of such trusts in protected industries is the surest sign that protection has done its work and is changing its character; that it protects the manufacturer no longer against the foreign importer, but against the home consumer; that it has manufactured, at least in the special branch concerned, quite enough, if not too many manufacturers; that the money it puts into the purse of these manufacturers is money thrown away, exactly as in Germany.”
(ibid)
Protectionism raises the prices of commodities in the home market, by keeping out cheaper imported commodities, and enabling domestic capital to sell at higher prices. It raises the cost of living for workers in the home market, which should lead to higher wages, but, in order to maintain profits, and to be able to sell on global markets, the domestic capital needs to keep wages down. The revenues used to subsidise the overproduction, via nationalisation etc., detracts from the ability to consume other commodities, and to accumulate capital in other industries. In the case of protective tariffs, it is the higher prices that consume those revenues, whereas, in the case of nationalisation it is the taxes (deducted from surplus value) used to subsidise the overproduction that consumes revenues and reduces capital accumulation and growth.
Nationalisation (state capitalism) is just the rational form, under capitalism, of the formation of the trusts, described by Marx and Engels, to absorb the surplus production. But, the capitalist state, then, as Kautsky described, also uses its greater power to hold down the wages of the workers – as seen in the way the government has suppressed public sector wages, way below wage settlements for workers in the private sector – and, when it has rationalised production, thrown thousands of the workers in the nationalised industries on to the streets – as happened in the 1980's – it, then, hands back control of the capital to the stock market wolves.
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