END OF GERMAN CAPITALISM
219
can Cartel, whereby the United States government would extend
its control over Latin America by the same kind of barter and
subsidy deals Germany for years has been using in Central Europe.
World trade has become a
political,
rather than an
economic
matter.
Thus two of Bukharin's three "fundamental motives for the
conquest policies of modern capitalist states"-"increased compe–
tition in the sales markets" and "in the markets of raw materials"
-are ruled out. His third "fundamental motive" is "competition
for the spheres of capital investment." Both Lenin and Bukharin
saw the
export of capital
(i.e., investments by the bourgeoisie of
an imperialist nation in mills, factories, railroads, utilities of
:eolonial and backward nations) as the characteristic feature of
.20th century imperialism. "Under the old type of capitalism,
when free competition prevailed, the export of
goods
was the most
typical feature," wrote Lenin. "Under modern capitalism, when
monopolies prevail, the export of
capital
has become the typical
feature." Unhappily-or happily, depending on your point of
view-the fatal basic contradiction of capitalist imperialism–
that the market itself, the mechanicm through which the more
advanced imperialist nations must exploit the backward and colo–
nial nations, works so as to bring the backward nations up to the
economic level of the advanced on'es-this appears in its most
extreme form in the typical form of 20th century imperialism: the
export of capital. For to export capital means no more and no
less than to put into the hands of the 'subjugated' nation not merely
the products of modern industry but the very machines and fac–
tories and capital goods that produce these products. In a word,
to give them the instruments, in an era of war, to challenge ulti–
mately their imperialist masters. (Thus, for example, the rebuild–
ing and rationalizing of German industry in the twenties, the eco–
nomic foundation of the Nazi war machine, was financed chiefly
by huge loans-i.e., 'capital exports'-from the United States.)
And so we find the export of capital figuring not at all in
Germany's postwar calculations. Even in the Balkans, a compara–
tively primitive region with plenty of openings for capital export,
Gern1any is trying to lower, not raise, the level of production. Thus
the first provision in an economic treaty forced on Yugoslavia in
October and designed to integrate that country with the Nazis'
"New European Order," was summarized by theN.
Y. Times
(Oct.
