4) Monopolies are compelled to turn to global markets because national markets do not satisfy their needs!

The Congress Documents state; "Due to the fact that national markets are unable to answer their needs, monopolies are compelled to turn to world markets." (p.17)

In the context of this sub-header, the relevant question is this: Why would capital require foreign markets? Firstly, in order to obtain higher profits; secondly, in order to ever expand the production; and thirdly, because of one of capital's natural feature, competition.

First, let's listen to Marx's analysis in Capital: "If capital is sent abroad, this is not done because it absolutely could not be applied at home, but because it can be employed at a higher rate of profit in a foreign country." (Capital, Volume Three, p. 226) [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-3rd .pdf]

Now Lenin: "Capitalism’s need of a foreign market is by no means to be explained by the impossibility of realising the product on the home market..." (Lenin, Development of Capitalism in Russia, p. 512) [https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dcr8v3rd /v3rd 8v.htm]

Here, the "need" is the essence of business and is directly linked to the "realization issue."

If what is meant is that the realization issue cannot be resolved within the domestic market; in other words, to put the matter in the way the MKP does, if the "needs of monopolies" cannot be answered within the domestic market, which is to say that the realization of the total social product is impossible without opening up to foreign markets, then this is another distortion of Marxism.

So the problem here is the problem of the realization. It is one of the keystones of Marx's economic theory and, moreover, is the main theme in the second volume of Capital. This is an issue of reproduction of social capital and at the same time it holds light to the matter of crisis in the system. The problem here has to do with the realization of the total social product, both in terms of its value (constant capital, variable capital and surplus-value) and its natural format (means of production and consumer goods, especially necessities and luxury goods. In the post-Marx era, one of the mistakes of Rose and some others, as formulated in Rosa's book Capital Accumulation, lies precisely on this point. And this is one of the points that are emphasized in Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia.


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