In many ways, imperialism has continued to display the major features noted in Imperialism, and all the more glaringly so. Today’s transnational corporations (TNCs) far outshine Lenin’s “trusts and cartels”. “Export of capital predominating over export of commodities” has become more pronounced and assumed newer forms such as hot money flows at lightning speed. As for “parasitism”, Lenin had already talked of “the financial strangulation” of the overwhelming majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” countries — by “international banker countries” and “usury imperialism” — a trend that has assumed more institutionalized shape with the rise of the transnational financial corporations and multilateral institutions like the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank etc.
Lenin not only drew attention to the coalescence of bank capital and industrial capital and the new role of giant banks, but referred to the still nascent trend of speculation in land, shares, etc. emerging as the most tempting field for making a fast buck:
“… the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ‘reigns’ and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the ‘geniuses’ of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialised production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit … the speculators.” (Imperialism)
Lenin stressed the inevitability of inter-imperialist wars for forced redistribution of colonies, sources of raw materials, etc. Alliances among imperialist states, he observed, “prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; the one conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peaceful struggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations within world economics and world politics.”
This is exactly how the world situation developed up to the Second World War, and it remains relevant as a long-term perspective.
But that war brought about certain basic and long-term changes in forms of political domination/hegemony and in the international balance of forces and consequently in the rules of the imperialist game of war and peace .A tremendous upsurge in national liberation movements forced the old and wounded imperialist powers like Great Britain, France, Italy, etc. to beat a retreat and take recourse to indirect methods of exploitation and domination. Many countries like our own passed on from colonial to semi-colonial status, where a limited political independence serves to hide unbridled economic plunder by several imperialist powers. War among imperialist countries for redivision of these colonial possessions, which marked the whole modern history of Europe and which therefore found a prominent place in Imperialism, had to become, historically, a thing of the past.
Secondly, the USA, which suffered the least in the war, emerged as an economic and military “superpower” (a new category) even as certain “great powers” (Germany, Italy, Japan) found themselves in ruins and others (most notably Great Britain and France) suffered heavy casualties in human, military and economic terms, including the loss of colonies. Washington used the situation to its best advantage. Through economic measures like launching the Marshall Plan and setting up the Fund-Bank twins, military initiatives like floating the NATO, a high-pitch ideological campaign against the “red danger” (rendered all the more palpable following the emergence of socialist China and Cuba) and various other means, it acquired over the capitalist world a hegemony — a combination of domination and leadership — that was unique in modern history. A semblance of unity prevailed, and. the gradual rise of a hegemonic “Soviet superpower” (a new category again) served as an inhibiting factor, keeping the inter-imperialist contradictions in check. On the military plane, the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons (which, for the first time in history, had the capacity to destroy all life on earth several times over) led to the novel doctrines of “mutual deterrence” and “cold war” even as wars of the old kind — wars of aggression against underdeveloped countries — continued to be waged by imperialist powers, the USA in particular.
But behind these alterations, the essential economic continuity remained. Lenin had written about “war contracts” as sources of mega-profits for big corporations; today we stand witness to a full-scale “war economy” and “military-industrial complex” (to use a term coined by US president Eisenhower). We also hear about “military Keynesianism”, which advocates wars as a means for toning up first the war-related industries and then, by extension, the whole economy — a strategy quite popular in US military circles, particularly the Republicans.
The collapse of the Soviet camp brought about the next major set of changes in international relations. With the disappearance of the inhibiting factor, the inter-imperialist contradictions which used to express themselves on issues of trade and finance now began to assume political overtones. The process was long-drawn, and came to the surface only before and during the recent war on Iraq. These contradictions are bound to intensify in the face of growing American obduracy and unilateralism, but are not likely to assume, at least in the near future, the shape of military confrontations. Rather, the narrow self-interests which prompted France, Germany etc. to oppose the Anglo-US move in Iraq also compel them to keep the godfather in good humour, as the post-war unanimous UN resolution withdrawing sanctions on Iraq showed.
The years that followed did not witness any notable escalation of inter-imperialist contradictions. However, the advent of euro as the challenger to dollar dictatorship in international commerce, added with the galloping US current account and budgetary deficits and sharp drop in the competitiveness of American industry (vide the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, September 2006) indicate that US economic hegemony over the imperialist world is slowly coming under a cloud and on a longer term this may lead to serious political implications.
Finally, in the modus operandi of imperialist finance capital, a range of changes have taken; place (and are increasingly taking place) which are too vast to be discussed here.
