Imperialism : Original Features
Imperialism is a term that was first popularised by bourgeois economists and then taken over by Marxist theoreticians. Drawing on works like Imperialism (1902) by JA Hobson, a bourgeois social reformist and pacifist, Austrian Marxist Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) and Russian Marxist NI Bukharin’s Imperialism and the World Economy (1915), Lenin produced the celebrated Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (April 1917). “… Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat”, he observed, on the basis of a thorough study of “the economic essence of imperialism”. The world’s first proletarian socialist revolution took place within six months after the pamphlet was published.
So far as basics are concerned Lenin’s Imperialism remains the best aid to understanding the original or defining features of imperialism. Let us now take note of the most important characteristics, which continue from Lenin’s time into our own (the following quotes are from this pamphlet, unless otherwise mentioned).
Rule of monopolies
“If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.”
A special stage in the historical evolution of capitalism – the monopoly stage following that of (so-called) perfect competition investigated by Marx and Engels – this is how Lenin contextualises his specialised study in the general framework of Marxian critique of capitalism.
Monopoly refers, most obviously, to the giant corporations arising out of concentration of production –corporations which have become much more powerful today than in Lenin’s time, not only in the economic arena but in the realms of politics and culture too. Thanks to the spate of mergers and acquisitions witnessed during the opening years of the present century, the degree of monopolisation has grown enormously. Just take a look at the business and non-business activities of, say, Rupert Murdoch’s ever-expanding media empire and firms like Microsoft, Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Vodafone, etc, look at the way they almost dictate state policy, and you will see why present-day capitalism is best described as monopoly capitalism. In addition, Lenin referred to monopolistic control over sources of major raw materials like coal and petroleum; monopolies in banking and finance (the finance oligarchy) and so on. However, in all these areas, monopolies do not mean the end of competition. Monopoly grows out of, and further accentuates, competition between firms and nations, (trade wars among developed nations, for example) as we can see everyday everywhere.
In addition to monopolisation, Lenin drew attention to several other features of imperialism.
