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Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

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capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe; less than one-fifth at a most “generous” and liberal calculation) of exceptionally rich and powerful states which plunder the whole world simply by “clipping coupons”. Capital exports yield an income of eight to ten thousand million francs per annum, at pre-war prices and according to pre-war bourgeois statistics. Now, of course, they yield much more. — location: 937 ^ref-30644

out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. — location: 942 ^ref-62487

Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problem of the communist movement and of the impending social revolution. Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. This has been confirmed since 1917 on a world-wide scale. — location: 953 ^ref-5722

Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialisation of production. — location: 1135 ^ref-57201

Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialisation of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialisation. — location: 1143 ^ref-15525

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. — location: 1167 ^ref-10826

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. — location: 1169 ^ref-33497

Domination, and the violence that is associated with it, such are the relationships that are typical of the “latest phase of capitalist development”; this is what inevitably had to result, and has resulted, from the formation of all-powerful economic monopolies. — location: 1181 ^ref-39055

“geniuses” of modern speculation know how to pocket big profits besides what they draw in dividends. — location: 1189 ^ref-51410

Monopoly hews a path for itself everywhere without scruple as to the means, from paying a “modest” sum to buy off competitors, to the American device of employing dynamite against them. — location: 1194 ^ref-52497

the monopoly created in certain branches of industry increases and intensifies the anarchy inherent in capitalist production as a whole. — location: 1197 ^ref-17254

in such periods of radical economic change, speculation develops on a large scale.”...[20] — location: 1210 ^ref-3792

we shall only have a very insufficient, incomplete, and poor notion of the real power and the significance of modern monopolies if we do not take into consideration the part played by the banks. — location: 1225 ^ref-22858

This transformation of numerous modest middlemen into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism; — location: 1276 ^ref-30495