Imperialism the highest stage China's conditions examined

Lenin listed five basic features:

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
(4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been complete¹

II. BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE¶

• Discusses merging of industrial and banking capital to create financial capital, which wields great power
• In China, state still maintains control over banking

III. FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY¶

IV. EXPORT OF CAPITAL¶

• mentions loans to foreign govs (used to exert political control)
• direct investment (generally to aid in resource extraction)
• Outright colonization

China never uses loans to coerce countries, frequently renegotiates or cancels debts. Investment actually contributes to growth

V. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS¶

"for the forms of the struggle may and do constantly change in accordance with varying, relatively particular, and temporary causes, but the essence of the struggle, its class content, cannot change while classes exist. It is easy to understand, for example, that it is in the interests of the German bourgeoisie, whose theoretical arguments have now been adopted by Kautsky (we will deal with this later), to obscure the content of the present economic struggle (the division of the world) and to emphasise this or that form of the struggle.

VI. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG THE GREAT POWERS¶

• Whatever involvement China has with other nations, it is not doing so to carve out a colony under its control

VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM¶

as mentioned above, following features listed:

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy;
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
(4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been complete¹

"We shall see later that imperialism can and must be defined differently if we bear in mind not only the basic, purely economic concepts—to which the above definition is limited—but also the historical place of this stage of capitalism in relation to capitalism in general, or the relation between imperialism and the two main trends in the working-class movement."

Phenomena of present-day capitalism: "cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers, and colonial policy"

"politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction"

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" In the Leninist approach, there is a social agency moulded by the developments of its historical circumstance, not just logical concepts assuming different degrees of intensity; there is a change in the social type of agency as it becomes the imperialist class."²

• Lenin was describing the global situation of his time. Whereas Kautsky seemed to think imperialism was one possible manifestation of capital at the time, Lenin put forward that it was