10. ‘Social Democracy and Imperialism’ (May 1900)

In the history of European Social Democracy, Eduard Bernstein's position was unique. The principal themes of Bernstein's book can be summarised briefly: 1) Marx's labour-theory of value was mistaken, since the rate of profit had not fallen nor had unemployment significantly increased; 2) the emergence of trusts and cartels facilitated more rational control of economic phenomena, thereby diminishing the prospect of a general crisis of capitalism for "purely economic" reasons; 3) joint-stock ownership also contributed to social stability by expanding the number of members of the possessing classes "both absolutely and relatively"; 4) greater economic stability and the extension of ownership discouraged class-consciousness; and 5) if socialism was, therefore, neither economically nor politically inevitable, it could only come about by virtue of its ethical superiority over capitalism. Imperialism was a phenomenon as old as history itself, and, among its contemporary variants, some were more and others less reactionary. Keywords:Eduard Bernstein; imperialism; social democracy