LENIN'S THEORY OF IMPERIALISM
Starting with the remarks made on this subject in the later works of Marx and Engels, Hilferding studied the structural changes of capitalism in the last quarter of the 19th century. He began with capitalist concentration, the concentration of banking and the preponderant part played by the banks in the launching of stock companies and the mergers of enterprises.
From this Hilferding defined what he called finance capital, that is, banking capital invested in industry and controlling it either directly (by the purchase of shares, the presence of bank representatives on the boards of directors, etc.), or indirectly (by the establishment of holding companies, concerns and “influence groups”).
Hilferding discovered the preponderant role played by banks in the development of heavy industry, especially in Germany, France, the United States, Belgium, Italy and Czarist Russia. He showed that these banks represented the most “aggressive” force in political matters, partly because of the risks involved in investments reaching billions of dollars.
In a brilliant conclusion to his work on finance capital, Hilferding predicted the rise of fascism, that is, a merciless and absolute political dictatorship, exercised in favor of big capital, corresponding to the new stage of capitalism as political liberalism corresponded to early competitive capitalism. Confronted with the threat of such a dictatorship, Hilferding concluded, the proletariat must engage in the struggle for its own dictatorship.
Lenin drew substantially on Hilferding’s work as well as on the works of some liberal economists like Hobson to produce his work on imperialism at the beginning of the First World War. Like Hilferding, he started from capitalist concentration – the establishment of trusts, cartels, holding companies, etc. – banking concentration, and the appearance of finance capital to characterize what is structurally new in this stage of capitalism.
Lenin extended and generalized this structural analysis, naming it monopoly capitalism, in contrast to 19th century competitive capitalism. He analyzed monopoly and monopoly profits, expanding a series of thoughts already begun in Hilferding’s idea that the expansionism of monopoly capitalism takes place primarily through the export of capital.
In contrast to competitive capitalism, which concentrated on the export of commodities and which was not interested in its clients, monopoly capitalism, exporter of capital, cannot be without interest in its debtors. It must assure “normal” conditions of solvency, without which its loans would transform themselves into losses: hence the tendency toward some form of political-economic control over the countries in which this capital is invested.
Lenin’s analysis of imperialism is completed with a very profound essay on the contradictory, dialectical nature of capitalist monopoly, which suppresses competition at one stage to reproduce it again on a higher level. Applying the law of uneven development both to the relations between the imperialist powers, Lenin showed that the division of the world among the imperialist powers can only be a temporary one, and is inevitably followed by struggles – imperialist war – to obtain a new division as the relationship of forces among these powers changes.
From this Hilferding defined what he called finance capital, that is, banking capital invested in industry and controlling it either directly (by the purchase of shares, the presence of bank representatives on the boards of directors, etc.), or indirectly (by the establishment of holding companies, concerns and “influence groups”).
Hilferding discovered the preponderant role played by banks in the development of heavy industry, especially in Germany, France, the United States, Belgium, Italy and Czarist Russia. He showed that these banks represented the most “aggressive” force in political matters, partly because of the risks involved in investments reaching billions of dollars.
In a brilliant conclusion to his work on finance capital, Hilferding predicted the rise of fascism, that is, a merciless and absolute political dictatorship, exercised in favor of big capital, corresponding to the new stage of capitalism as political liberalism corresponded to early competitive capitalism. Confronted with the threat of such a dictatorship, Hilferding concluded, the proletariat must engage in the struggle for its own dictatorship.
Lenin drew substantially on Hilferding’s work as well as on the works of some liberal economists like Hobson to produce his work on imperialism at the beginning of the First World War. Like Hilferding, he started from capitalist concentration – the establishment of trusts, cartels, holding companies, etc. – banking concentration, and the appearance of finance capital to characterize what is structurally new in this stage of capitalism.
Lenin extended and generalized this structural analysis, naming it monopoly capitalism, in contrast to 19th century competitive capitalism. He analyzed monopoly and monopoly profits, expanding a series of thoughts already begun in Hilferding’s idea that the expansionism of monopoly capitalism takes place primarily through the export of capital.
In contrast to competitive capitalism, which concentrated on the export of commodities and which was not interested in its clients, monopoly capitalism, exporter of capital, cannot be without interest in its debtors. It must assure “normal” conditions of solvency, without which its loans would transform themselves into losses: hence the tendency toward some form of political-economic control over the countries in which this capital is invested.
Lenin’s analysis of imperialism is completed with a very profound essay on the contradictory, dialectical nature of capitalist monopoly, which suppresses competition at one stage to reproduce it again on a higher level. Applying the law of uneven development both to the relations between the imperialist powers, Lenin showed that the division of the world among the imperialist powers can only be a temporary one, and is inevitably followed by struggles – imperialist war – to obtain a new division as the relationship of forces among these powers changes.
Lenin also integrated into his theory of imperialism Engels’ concept of the workers’ aristocracy. The colonial super profits, brought in by the capital exported to backward countries, permit the corruption of part of the working class, above all a reformist bureaucracy which cooperates with the bourgeois democratic regime and obtains great benefits from it.
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