Introduction
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, capitalism reached the stage of monopolies. The monopoly capitalists of the day, referred to as multi millionaires, were aware that certain changes were taking place, within their beloved system of capitalism. They did not understand these changes, but embraced them, as this gave rise to huge profits. They referred to this new system of monopoly capitalism as imperialism.
It was not until 1916, while Lenin was still in exile in Switzerland, that he decided to conduct a thorough analysis of capitalism, in its new monopoly stage, that of imperialism. The result was titled, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
As mentioned in a previous article, this is another work of Lenin, which I consider to be required reading, especially for those who are taking part in various ‘’protest movements’’. Soon, those same protests will expand, into a full scale revolution. As I am mainly concerned with common people, those who have just recently become politically active, I will explain certain technical expressions. The figures presented need no explanation.
It is significant that this work was based on the figures which the capitalists had gathered, for their own purposes. It is also significant that Lenin paid little attention to the analysis of those figures, which was frequently provided by the bourgeois economists.
Chapter 1
Concentration of Production and Monopolies
In the first paragraph, Lenin states that the ‘’enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid process of concentration of production in ever larger enterprises represent one of the most characteristic features of capitalism’’. He goes on to say that ‘’censuses of production’’ provide us with ‘’complete and exact information’’.
It is important to bear in mind that Lenin based this book upon the facts and figures of the capitalists, those which were gathered by the ‘’concientious’’ bourgeois economists. These he refers to as ‘’censuses of production’’, and he describes them as ‘’complete and exact’’. They were clearly gathered by those same economists, for their own purposes.
This is followed by a detailed list of ‘’industrial enterprises’’ in Germany, in which ‘’production is concentrated’’. As a result of this, ‘’labour in the large enterprises is much more productive’’. In conclusion, Lenin states: ‘’Less than one- hundredth of the total enterprises utilize more than three-quarters of the steam and electric power!’’ (italics by Lenin)
I should add that ‘’one-hundredth’’ is ‘’one in a hundred’’, or ‘’one percent’’. Also, ‘’three-quarters’’ is ‘’seventy five out of a hundred’’, or ‘’seventy five percent’’.
From these figures, Lenin concluded the following: ‘’Tens of thousands of large-scale enterprises are everything; millions of small ones are nothing….millions of small, medium and even some big ’masters’ are in fact in complete subjection to some hundreds of millionaire financiers’’.
Lenin then examined ‘’another advanced country of modern capitalism, the United States’’. His conclusion? ‘’Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by a hundredth part of those enterprises!…From this it can be seen that, at a certain stage of its development, concentration itself, as it were, leads right to monopoly; for a score of so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at an agreement.’’ (italics by Lenin)
This was followed by an example of that which is very important in an industrialized country, the manufacture of steel goods. This involves first mining iron ore, which is a metal. This is followed by ‘’smelting’’, or heating that metal, until ‘’pig iron’’ is extracted. Then steel can be produced from this pig iron.
As well, Lenin refers to ‘’combines’’. In business terms, this involves the merger of two or more businesses. In different countries, these can take different forms. A ‘’corporation’’ is defined as ‘’a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners’’. If a corporation combines with other businesses, then the result is a ‘’conglomerate’’. This same conglomerate may be referred to as a ‘’trust’’. A ‘’cartel’’ is defined as ‘’an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition’’. Possibly the most famous Cartel is OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
From the examples of these two industrialized countries, Germany and America, Lenin was able to draw some conclusions: ‘’At a certain stage of its development, concentration itself, as it were, leads right to monopoly; for a score or so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at an agreement, while on the other hand the difficulty of competition and tendency towards monopoly arise from the very dimensions of the enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important- if not the most important- phenomena of modern capitalist economy’’.
Lenin goes on to state that not all branches of industry contain ‘’large- scale enterprises’’. He also stresses the importance of ‘’combines’’. (italics by Lenin)
Lenin then proceeded to give a summary of the effect of monopoly, on all capitalist countries: ‘’Differences between capitalist countries …only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance, and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism’’.
He then proceeded to give the business practices of cartels: ‘’Cartels come to agreement on the conditions of sale, terms of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc.’’
No wonder the capitalists so love cartels!
As a result of this, in all capitalist countries, without exception, competitive capitalism is replaced by monopoly. As Lenin stated: ‘’Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialization of production. In particular, the process of technical invention and improvement becomes socialized’’.
Monopoly capitalists are able to hire the finest engineers and scientists, in order to estimate the sources of raw material, for a country or even a group of countries. Then with their great wealth, they are able to take control of those raw materials. Then it is a rather simple matter of estimating the markets for those goods, and dividing it up among themselves.
Lenin concludes with the following: ‘’Capitalism in its imperialist stage arrives at the threshold of the most complete socialization of production….Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few.’’
The ‘’means of production’’ is a reference to the factories, mills, mines and so forth. The ‘’private property of the few’’ is a reference to the fact that they continue to belong to the monopoly capitalists, the billionaires, technically referred to as the ‘’bourgeoisie’’.
These monopolies are becoming ever stronger, ever more complete. In the interest of securing ever greater profits, the capitalists resort to that which they refer to as ‘’business practices’’, or as ‘’organization’’. Lenin gives a list of these ‘’practices’’, all of which are perfectly legal!
Incidentally, the term i.e. means ”that is”.
‘’(1) stopping supplies of raw materials … “one of the most important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel”);
‘’(2) stopping the supply of labour by means of “alliances” (i.e., of agreements between the capitalists and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to work only in cartelized enterprises);
‘’(3) stopping deliveries;
‘’(4) closing trade outlets;
‘’(5) agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels;
‘’(6) systematic price cutting (to ruin ‘outside’ firms, i.e., those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price; there were instances when the price of petrol was thus reduced from 40 to 22 marks, i.e., almost by half!);
‘’(7) stopping credits;
‘’(8) boycott.”
Lenin goes on to say: ‘’Here we no longer have competition between small and large, between technically developed and backward enterprises. We see here the monopolists throttling those who do not submit to them, to their yoke, to their dictation.
‘’At the basis of these swindles and manipulations lies socialized production; but the immense progress of humanity, which achieved this socialization, entirely goes to benefit the speculators’’.
This is not to say that monopolies, in the form of cartels, corporations or trusts, can abolish crises. By no means! Our current crisis in capitalism, which involves several crises, at one time, is proof of that! As Lenin stated, ‘’when monopoly appears in certain branches of industry, it increases and intensifies the anarchy inherent in capitalist production as a whole. The disparity between the development of agriculture and that of industry which is characteristic of capitalism, is increased’’.
That may help to explain our current uprising -protests!- on the part of the farmers!
Lenin concludes this chapter with that which I consider to be most important: ‘’Crises of every kind- economic crises more frequently, but not only these- in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and monopoly’’.
Chapter II
The Banks and Their New Role
The first paragraph of this Chapter is of vital importance, so that I have decided to re-produce it:
‘’The principal and primary function of banks is to serve as middlemen in the making of payments. In so doing they transform inactive money capital into active, that is, into capital yielding a profit; they collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the capitalist class. As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of establishments, the banks grow from modest middlemen into powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries. 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; for this reason we must first of all examine the concentration of banking.’’
It is not just businesses and corporations that become transformed into monopolies, under imperialism. Banks also become monopolies! The big banks ‘’squeeze out’’ the small ones! Often these ‘’small banks’’ are absorbed, bringing the small banks into the ‘’concern’’ of the big banks, to use the stilted jargon of the capitalists.
This is followed by a most impressive list of very large banks, complete with their numerous ‘’affiliated’’ banks, which control a huge amount of capital. There follows a paragraph which I consider to be of vital importance:
’These simple figures show perhaps better than lengthy disquisitions how the concentration of capital and the growth of bank turnover are radically changing the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, a bank, as it were, transacts a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, this operation grows to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists subordinate to their will all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of the whole of capitalist society; for they are enabled-by means of their banking connections, their current accounts and other financial operations—first, to ascertain exactly the financial position of the various capitalists, then to control them, to influence them by restricting or enlarging, facilitating or hindering credits, and finally to entirely determine their fate, determine their income, deprive them of capital, or permit them to increase their capital rapidly and to enormous dimensions, etc.’’
Clearly, the power of the banks, under imperialism, once they achieve the status of monopoly, is most impressive.
This is followed by a statement, by a German journalist, which did not impress Lenin. In fact, Lenin gave this as a ‘’very good example of the impotence of bourgeois journalism, which differs from bourgeois science, only in that the latter is less sincere and strives to obscure essential things, to conceal the wood by the trees’’.
As Lenin stated, ‘’To be ‘surprised’ at the results of concentration, to ‘reproach’ the government of capitalist Germany, or capitalist society (‘ourselves’), to fear that the introduction of stocks and shares might ‘hasten’ concentration…is not this impotence?’’
As someone who has a passion for science, this statement is of particular significance. To say that ‘’bourgeois science’’ is ‘’less sincere’’ that bourgeois journalism, is absolutely correct! I can testify to that fact! I sometimes wonder if bourgeois scientists even know the meaning of the word sincere!
This was followed by a quote from Marx, a half century earlier: ‘’The banking system possesses, indeed, the form of universal book-keeping and distribution of means of production on a social scale, but solely the form”.
Lenin then proceeded to draw some conclusions from the figures he just quoted:
‘’The figures we have quoted on the growth of bank capital, on the increase in the number of the branches and offices of the biggest banks, the increase in the number of their accounts, etc., present a concrete picture of this “universal book-keeping” of the whole capitalist class; and not only of the capitalists, for the banks collect, even though temporarily, all kinds of money revenues—of small businessmen, office clerks, and of a tiny upper stratum of the working class. Universal distribution of means of production—that, from the formal aspect, is what grows out of the modern banks, which, numbering some three to six of the biggest in France, and six to eight in Germany, control millions and millions. In substance, however, the distribution of means of production is not at all ‘universal’, but private, i.e., it conforms to the interests of big capital, and primarily, of huge, monopoly capital, which operates under conditions in which the masses live in want, in which the whole development of agriculture hopelessly lags behind the development of industry, while within industry itself the ‘heavy industries’ exact tribute from all other branches of industry. ‘’
It is note worthy that in America today, there are a mere eight banks that are classified as ‘’Too Big To Fail’’. It follows that the thousands of other banks are ‘’Too Small To Succeed’’.
Lenin then gives some more figures, as well as valuable admissions of bourgeois economists. His conclusions are listed below.
‘’Again and again, the final word in the development of banking is monopoly. As regards the close connection between the banks and industry, it is precisely in this sphere that the new role of the banks is, perhaps, most strikingly felt. When a bank discounts a bill for a firm, opens a current account for it, etc., these operations, taken separately, do not in the least diminish its independence, and the bank plays no other part than that of a modest middleman. But when such operations are multiplied and become an established practice, when the bank ‘collects’ in its own hands enormous amounts of capital, when the running of a current account for a given firm enables the bank—and this is what happens—to obtain fuller and more detailed information about the economic position of its client, the result is that the industrial capitalist becomes more completely dependent on the bank.
‘’At the same time a personal link-up, so to speak, is established between the banks and the biggest industrial and commercial enterprises, the merging of one with another through the acquisition of shares, through the appointment of bank directors to the Supervisory Boards (or Boards of Directors) of industrial and commercial enterprises, and vice versa.’’
The distinction between the corporate executive and the bank managers, are becoming ever more blurred, under monopoly capitalism. It is safe to say that in many cases, they are now the same.
At the end of the chapter, Lenin summed up the transition, from competitive capitalism, to monopoly capitalism, imperialism:
‘’The old capitalism has had its day. The new capitalism represents a transition towards something. It is hopeless, of course, to seek for ‘firm principles and a concrete aim’ for the purpose of ‘reconciling’ monopoly with free competition. The admission of the practical men has quite a different ring from the official praises of the charms of ‘organised’ capitalism sung by its apologists, Schulze-Gaevernitz, Liefmann and similar theoreticians’.‘’Thus, the twentieth century marks the turning-point from the old capitalism to the new, from the domination of capital in general to the domination of finance capital.’’
Chapter III
Finance Capital and Financial Oligarchy
For the benefit of those readers who may not know, ‘’Finance Capital’’ is defined as the ‘’monetary assets required for a business to provide goods and services’’.
‘’Financial Oligarchy’’ is defined as ‘’having the largest private owners in the country. It also possesses sufficient political power to promote its own interests. The owners control multiple businesses, and they intensively coordinate their activities. ‘’
Strangely enough, Lenin begins this Chapter, with a quote from a ‘’conscientious’’ bourgeois economist, by the name of Hilferding. This economist pointed out that ever more ‘’industrial capital’’ comes from the banks, so that the banker is being ‘’transformed into an industrial capitalist’’. The ‘’bank capital’’ is thus transformed into ‘’industrial capital’’, which Hilferding calls ‘’finance capital’’.
Lenin then states that Hilferding ‘’stresses the part played by capitalist monopolies’’. (italics by Lenin)
Lenin then proceeded to elaborate: ‘’The concentration of production; the monopoly arising therefrom; the merging or coalescence of banking with industry: this is the history of finance capital and what gives the term ’finance capital’ its content.’’
The fact of the matter is that, under monopoly capitalism, the ‘’domination’’ of capitalist monopolies inevitably becomes the ‘’domination of a financial oligarchy’’. Lenin then documented this procedure. In fact, he quotes a bourgeois economist, who described the procedure rather well: ‘’The executive director controls the parent company; the latter reigns over the subsidiary companies which similarly control still other subsidiaries’’.
Lenin goes on to explain: ‘’Thus it is possible with a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production…. the executive director needs only one million to control eight millions in the second subsidiaries. And if this ‘interlocking’ is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen, thirty two or more millions’’.
Yet there is more to the ‘’holding system’’ than that. The monopolists who are in control, are also able to cheat the public in any number of ways. After all, the directors of the parent company are not legally responsible for the subsidiary companies. A couple of examples are thoughtfully provided.
Lenin then sums up the situation: ‘’Finance capital, concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual monopoly, exacts enormous and ever increasing profits from the floating of companies, issue of stock, state loans, etc., tightens the grip of the financial oligarchies and levies tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of the monopolists.’’
This is followed by more helpful examples, and another summary: ‘’A monopoly, once it is formed and controls thousands of millions, inevitably penetrates into every sphere of public life, regardless of the form of government and all other ‘details’’’. (italics by Lenin)
There follows a fine paragraph, which first calls for a little explanation. A ‘’rentier’’ is defined as a ‘’person who lives on income from property or investments’’. Also, an ‘’entrepreneur’’ is defined as ‘’a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks, in order to do so’’.
As Lenin stated, ‘’Generally speaking, under capitalism, the ownership of capital is separate from the application of capital to production; money capital is separate from industrial or productive capital; the rentier, living entirely on income obtained from money capital, is separated from the entrepreneur and from all those directly concerned in the management of capital. Imperialism, or the rule of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism, in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the rule of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy’’. (italics by Lenin)
It is significant that Lenin refers to the ‘’entrepreneurs’’ as those who are ‘’managers’’ of a business. If nothing else, they are performing a useful, productive service. This stands in stark contrast to those whom he refers to as ‘’rentiers’’, those who ‘’live entirely’’ on income obtained from their invested capital. These people, rentiers, monopoly capitalists, billionaires, the bourgeoisie, perform no useful service! Regardless of what they say about themselves, they are not entrepreneurs! They are rentiers! Parasites!
Incidentally, after the forth coming Scientific Socialist Revolution, after the ruling class of billionaires are overthrown and crushed, under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, we will still need specialists of every sort. This includes business managers, those whom Lenin refers to as ‘’entrepreneurs’’. They can, and they will, be quite happy to work for us. They will show certain advanced workers the finer points of running a business, and in turn, will be paid quite handsomely for this.
I would even expect these business managers, ‘’entrepreneurs’’, to be anxious to work for us! Just as the military cannot force anyone to do anything they do not want to do, they can force everyone to wish they had!
This stands in stark contrast to the ‘’rentiers’’, the billionaires, the parasites, those who merely refer to themselves as ‘’entrepreneurs’’. They are not! They have no idea how to run a business! In fact, they have no useful skills!
Yet as we want everyone to be useful, we are going to have to find something for them to do. Aside from plot and scheme some way to return to power! That is a given! For that reason, I can only suggest putting them to work, performing unskilled manual labour, in a remote location. At the same time, they must be denied all access to digital devices. Bear in mind, that after the revolution, the bourgeoisie will remain very strong! They will still have international connections! They will be only too anxious to secure those connections! The results could be disastrous!
Chapter IV
The Export of Capital
This chapter also calls for a little explanation. We can start by facing the fact that it was the industrial revolution, which gave birth to capitalism. Further, in giving birth to capitalism, it also gave birth to two new classes, the bourgeois, or capitalist, and the proletariat, or the worker.
Scholars are generally agreed that this revolution started around 1760, in Great Britain. Up until that time, everything was made by hand. But then, by using machines, production ‘’sky rocketed’’. The industrial revolution was born.
At the same time, the merchants, or burghers, who lived in town, wasted no time in securing all the factories, mills, mines and other ‘’means of production’’. They also secured all the banks and other ‘’financial institutions’’. As well, they bought railroads and shipping lines, the ‘’means of transportation’’. These are the technical terms the capitalists use.
In the process, these merchants, or burghers, became transformed into ’bourgeois’’, or ’’capitalists’’. They also needed people to run those machines, so that a working class was created. The capitalists were forced to hire people to run those machines. Those people become known as workers, or ‘’proletarians’’, those who work by the hour.
This brings us to terms with which many common people may not be familiar. That which is referred to as ‘’goods’’, are considered to be ‘’items that satisfy human wants’’. A commodity is a ‘’good sold for production or consumption just as it was found in nature’’. Then there is capital, which is ‘’anything created by exploiting the living labour provided by workers’’.
While these definitions may not be terribly precise, it does give us a place to start.
Lenin also referred to ‘’usury’’, which is defined as ‘’lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest’’.
The first paragraph is critical: ‘’Under the old type of capitalism, when free competition prevailed, the export of goods was the most typical feature. Under modern capitalism, when monopolies prevail, the export of capital has become the typical feature.’’ (italics by Lenin)
At first, as the industrial revolution started in Britain, the British had a monopoly in trade, and used it, to great advantage. They sold manufactured goods all around the world, and in turn, expected the rest of the world to supply them with raw materials. This is to say that they exported such goods as shoes and clothing, while expecting the under developed countries to supply them with raw materials, such as leather and cotton.
The trouble was that capitalism spread to other countries, despite the finest efforts of the British capitalists. What is more, capitalism develops unevenly, within different branches of industry, as well as within individual countries. As a result of this, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the British monopoly in trade, was undermined. At about the same time, capitalist monopolies, in business, began to take shape.
The end result was that within a few highly industrialized countries, there emerged an enormous ‘’superfluidity of capital’’, as Lenin phrased it. This to say that there was a great surplus of capital. Not that it would ever occur to the capitalists to invest in such things as agriculture, or anything else that could raise the standard of living of the common people.
As Lenin stated, ‘’As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will never be utilized for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists; it will be used for the purpose of increasing those profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries’’.
In other words, capital is exported, mainly to the colonies. The reason is that in those colonies, as in all under developed countries, capital is scarce, wages are low, the price of land is also low, and raw materials are cheap. Profits tend to be high.
So on the one hand, capitalists in a highly industrialized country, generally invest their capital in an under developed country, preferably a colonial country. This results in the acceleration of the development of capitalism, within those colonial countries. At the same time, the country that is exporting capital, may experience an ‘’arrested development’’.
The country of France was somewhat exceptional, in that they specialized in exporting capital, in the form of government loans, at very high interest rates, referred to as ‘’usury’’. They tended to avoid investing in industrial development.
Yet there is a bit more to those loans, than collecting high interest. The capitalists are not about to do this out of the goodness of their hearts! There are ‘’strings attached’’!
As Lenin pointed out, ‘’monopolies introduce everywhere monopolist methods…The most usual thing is to stipulate that part of the loan that is granted shall be spent on purchases in the country of issue, particularly on orders for war materials’’. In popular terms, this is referred to as ‘’skinning the cat twice’’.
Lenin concludes by stating that ‘’finance capital…spreads its net over all countries of the world. Banks founded in the colonies, or their branches, play an important part in these operations.
‘’The capital exporting countries have divided the world among themselves in the figurative sense of the word. But finance capital has also led to the actual division of the world.’’ (italics by Lenin)
Chapter V
The Division of the World Among Capitalist Combines
This is a chapter which is quite straight forward. The first paragraph gets right to the heart of the matter: ‘’Monopolist capitalist combines -cartels, syndicates, trusts- divide among themselves, first of all, the whole internal market of a country, and impose their control, more or less completely, upon the industry of that country. But under capitalism, the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial relations, the ‘spheres of influence’ of the big monopolist combines expanded, things tended ‘naturally’ toward an international agreement among those combines and toward the formation of international cartels.’’
He then proceeded to give a few examples of how this ‘’super monopoly’’develops, starting with the electrical industry.
At around the beginning of the twentieth century, two huge electrical monopolies took shape, one in Germany, and the other in America. Each of these monopolies was referred to as a ‘’trust’’, by Lenin. In 1907, those two trusts came to an agreement, by which they divided the world between themselves. Of course, all of this took place secretly, and the two trusts agreed to exchange inventions and experiments.
This had the effect of throttling almost all competition, at least temporarily. But as Lenin pointed out, ‘’the division of the world between two powerful trusts does not remove the possibility of re-division, if the relation of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy, etc.’’ (italics by Lenin)
Lenin followed this example, within the electrical industry, with another example, also between Germany and America, but in the oil industry. He refers to this as a struggle for ‘’re-division’’.
On the American side, the Rockefeller trust was determined to conquer everything. They were focused on establishing a world monopoly, on the oil market. To a large extent, they succeeded, in that the German Deutsche Bank was forced to submit. In 1907, the Deutsche Bank agreed ‘’not to attempt anything which might injure American interests’’. Although provision was made for the annulment of the agreement in the event of Germany establishing a state oil company.
That ‘’provision’’ was the very ‘’loophole’’ the German capitalists seized upon! One of the ‘’German finance kings’’, a director of the Deutsche Bank, began a campaign for state oil monopoly. Thus began a serious attempt, by the German capitalists, to ‘’cut the throat’’ of the American capitalists, to use the expression of those same capitalists. But the German capitalists quarrelled among themselves, concerning the division of the spoils. The German state oil monopoly fell apart.
This was followed by the ‘’valuable admission’’, of a well respected bourgeois economist, writing in a German magazine, to the effect that: ‘’In Germany, monopolies have never pursued the aim, not have they had the result of benefitting the consumer, or of handing over to the state part of the entrepreneurs’ profits; they have served only to sanitate, at the expense of the state, private industries which were on the verge of bankruptcy’’.
This economist could have added that this is true of all monopolies, in all parts of the world, and not just in Germany!
Lenin then added: ‘’Such are the valuable admissions which the German bourgeois economists are forced to make. We see plainly here how private monopolies and state monopolies are bound together in the age of finance capital; how both are but separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big monopolists for the division of the world’’.
This is followed by several instructive examples. One is in mercantile shipping, in which ‘’German giants’’ came to an agreement with an ‘’Anglo American trust’’. The contract was concluded for twenty years, with ‘’a prudent provision for its annulment in the event of war’’.
Another example was that of the International Rail Cartel, a mixture of British, Belgian and German rail manufacturers. This was created in 1884, at a time of a ‘’severe industrial depression’’. This cartel collapsed in 1886, and as Lenin stated, ‘’It is characteristic that agreement could not be achieved in the period of industrial prosperity which followed’’.
The International Steel Syndicate of 1904 was quite impressive, at least in terms of all the countries that were involved. These included Germany, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain and America.
This was followed by listing the International Zinc Syndicate, and the International Dynamite Trust.
Lenin provided those preceding examples in order to make a point: ‘’International cartels show to what point capitalist monopolies have developed, and they reveal the object of the struggle between the various capitalist groups. …for the forms of the struggle may and do vary in accordance with varying, relatively particular and transitory causes, but the essence of the struggle, its class content, cannot change while classes exist…it is in the interests of the German bourgeoisie…to obscure the content of the contemporary economic struggle (the division of the world) and to emphasize one or another form of the struggle…Of course, we have in mind not only the German bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie all over the world’’. (italics by Lenin)
Later in the article, Lenin points out that the ‘’forms of the struggle’’, between the ‘’international cartels’’ may be ‘’today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day peaceful again’’. At the time this article was written, in 1916, the struggle was definitely warlike!
He also made a statement which I consider to be quite significant: ‘’The capitalists divide the world, not out of malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to get profits. And they divide it in proportion to capital, in proportion to ‘strength’, because there cannot be any other system of division under the system of commodity production and capitalism. But strength varies with the degree of economic and political development.’’
This is to say that as capitalists in certain industrialized countries become stronger, or think that they are stronger, then it is just a matter of time before they challenge other capitalists, in other countries, for a larger share of the ‘’spoils’’.
Lenin then summed this up, in the last paragraph:
‘’The epoch of modern capitalism shows us that certain relations are established between capitalist alliances, based on the economic partition of the world; while parallel to this fact and in connection with it, certain relations are established between political alliances, between states, on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the ‘struggle for economic territory’’’. (italics by Lenin)
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 