Page - 117 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

a contribution to the theory of imperialism 117 lation, technologicaldevelopment, andeducationalpurposes), butby raising workproductivity.Thelatter, inturn,canbeachievedbyintensifyingthesocial division of labour. With this thesis, Bauer consciously contradictedMarx’s assumptionthatabolishingthedivisionof labourwasanimportantcondition for implementingthesocialistorder. To summarise, it would certainly not be amisrepresentation to say that Bauer’s economic thought – which contained many errors, but also many interestinginsightsandconclusions–wasbarelyrelevanttothepoliciesofthe sdap.Fortheworkers,itwasincomprehensibleandoftenwentdirectlyagainst theirimmediateinterests–forinstance,concerningwageincreases.Ihavetried tohighlight thestrongandweakpoints inhis lineof thinkingwhendepicting its individualelements.What ismore,Bauer’seconomicobservationsdidnot receiveasmuchattentionintheSecondInternationalas therespectiveworks ofKautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin,Tugan-Baranovski,Hilferding, andothers. The decisivefactorwasthatBauer’seconomictheoryevolvedatthewrongtimeto makemuchofanimpact.Theyearsfrom1896–1913, incontrast,wereatimeof intensedebateabouttheeconomicfutureofcapitalism.Theywerefollowedby aperiodduringwhichmorecriticallyimportantissues,suchastheoutbreakof WorldWari, the fascisisationofEurope,andtheimminentoutbreakofWorld Warii,wereatthecentreofattention. Although Iwill refrain fromanoverall judgementof thehistorical import- ance of Bauer’s economic theory, I have nonetheless identified far-reaching trainsofthoughtthatarereflectedintoday’sglobaleconomicsituation.Among themare the riseof global capital and thewebof internationalmoney trans- fers; the subordination of political and social structures to the logic of cir- culation and accumulationof capital; theweakening of national economies, and the formationofdecision-makingcentres. It is alsoworthciting theneg- ative results of technologisation that Bauer warned of in Rationalisierung- Fehlrationalisierung (Rationalisation and False Rationalisation, 1931), namely phenomenasuchastheriseofmassunemploymentandthecreationofacon- sumersocietyinwhichthemediapushesuniformneeds,values,andviews.To useMarcuse’s terminology:aone-dimensionalsociety.89 89 SeeBauer1931,pp.815,837.