Why do we talk about a nation-state basis of the economy?

             

The Theses mention that "the conditions for the expanded reproduction of capital, of the monopoly groups, the stock companies, continue in their majority to be formed in the framework of the nation states and the various inter-state imperialist alliances which they participate in.”

Is this assessment consistent with the fact that today there large multinational stock companies that are active in a large number of countries?

The general trend that is prevalent in capitalism today is for production not to be limited by national constraints, for investments to cross borders and for capital to be transferred amongst the bourgeois states. This is what we call the internationalization of the capitalist market. However, this trend cannot negate uneven development amongst the sections of capital, the businesses and the "national" capitalist economies. Nor can it reverse the fact that the greatest part of the expanded reproduction of capital, i.e. the increase of its dimensions in relation to the past, is realized in the framework of each nation-state. The inter-imperialist contradictions intensify on the basis of this contradictory objective motion of the capitalist economy.

A characteristic example. Who is not aware of the fact that US multinational companies invest in every corner of the planet and have shareholders from all over the world in their composition? However, the domestic market maintains its dominant role in terms of capital accumulation, even in the USA, despite the increase of the importance of the subsidiaries of the multinational monopoly groups that have their headquarters in the USA. The percentage of added value (an indicator of capital accumulation) of US multinational companies that comes from abroad increased from 23.3% in 1994 to 33.2% in 2008. It has recently decreased slightly to 30%. We are talking about 1/3 of the total of added value. This means that more than 2/3 of the profits of US multinational companies come from the domestic market.

So, the conditions for the expanded reproduction of the capital of the monopoly groups, the stock companies, continue in their majority to be formed in the framework of the nation-states and the various inter-state capitalist alliances which they participate in. This is related to and determines the forms of taxation, the lending conditions, wage levels, tariff protection, state subsidies for exports, state grants and assistance for businesses.

At the same time, each bourgeois nation-state utilizes its economic, political and military strength to support its domestic monopoly groups in the competition at an international level. Irrespective of its potential multinational shareholder composition, each monopoly group has ties and references to a specific bourgeois state and the relevant imperialist alliances. In the final analysis, each stock company has as its base the capitalist economy of a specific state and it is on this objective terrain that it acquires the potential to export a section of its capital. The bourgeois nation state remains then the basic organ that safeguards the economic dominance of the monopolies, the concentration and centralization of capital in competition with similar processes in other states.

 

 

03.03.2017

 

 

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[*]In the framework of the pre-congress procedures of the 20^th Congress of the party, a series of articles are being published in “Rizospastis” in a special column “Question-Answer” around ideological-political issues contained in the Theses of the CC.
This article was published on 9/2/2017