ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the problem of how to combine the general and detailed elements in the historical materialist method is, a major feature of the debates about imperialism and globalization. The debates on imperialism of a century ago were partly driven by terrible fears for the future. Writers like Lenin and Luxemburg saw human society as being rapidly pulled by capitalism into an abyss of violence, war, destruction and barbarism unless it could be rescued by socialism. The political need and the theoretical method combined to produce a flowering of bold and innovative extensions, adaptations and updatings of Marx's insights into the nature of capitalism. Non-Marxist and anti-Marxist writers have probably devoted more energy to attacking Marxist theories of imperialism than to almost any other aspect of Marxism. The real growth in the globalized aspects of capitalism, are enough to require a resistance movement which can transcend national boundaries at the same speed better than capital can.
