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Imperialism and Socialism in the 21st Century
Part Two – Imperialism Defined
By: Don Currie
Chair Canadians for Peace and Socialism
Editor Focus on Socialism
July 4, 2007
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca
“…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 socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind,
which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit…the speculators. We shall see later how
“on these grounds” reactionary petty bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of
going back to “free”, “peaceful”, and honest competition.
V.I. Lenin: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Volume 22 pages 206 and 207.
Progress Publishers, Moscow 1964.
Imperialism is the final stage in the development of capitalism characterized by the
dominance of the export of finance capital over the export of commodities. Modern
imperialism is a system of global capital formation and expansion, resulting from the merger
of finance and industrial capital marshaled in banks, investment groupings, networks of
stock markets and the state and placed at the service of trans‐national corporations for
export to all corners of the globe. In the age of modern technology and instantaneous
communication integrated stock markets and interlocking boards managing financial
institutions, decisions on the movement of capital around the world is rapid.
Trans‐national corporations and their investment backers, reach across all national
boundaries to implant capital for the exploitation of labour and resources, for investment in
all forms of private, state, and private‐state enterprise, for the domination of markets for
the construction, transfer, centralization and consolidation of world wide production
facilities and processes and for the crushing and ousting of home market competition.
Imperialism utilizes all forms of political pressure to achieve its aims not excluding war,
counter‐revolution, blockades, bribery and fomenting internal political and economic chaos.
Imperialism’s only enterprise is to perpetuate itself by the export of finance capital, the
division and re‐division of the markets of the world, the appropriation of the resources of
the planet of which energy has become the principle prize. Imperialism attempts to remove
all restrictions not only on the movement of finance capital but also and out of necessity, all
barriers on the utilization and exploitation of human labour.
Finance capital cannot be set in motion to realize profit without an inexhaustible supply of
mobile labour creating surplus value from the unpaid labour time of countless millions of
workers. Finance capital uses labour selectively driving down its price without regard for the
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large armies of destitute, displaced, redundant and unemployable workers it creates as it
destroys old economies and re‐establishes new. In fact, finance capital requires large
reserves of unemployed labour readily available to it anywhere on the globe. The wanton
disregard for the human cost of its enterprise and expansion is the greatest of all crimes of
the many criminal activities of imperialism.
Imperialism and Militarism
The aggressiveness of global imperialism is expressed in the frequency and ferocity of its
military intervention, fomenting wars and occupations accompanied by the growth of
systems of permanent military bases strategically located and connected by global satellite
technology and communications under integrated command structures. Imperialist military
aggression has become the principal threat to life on earth because of the vast quantities of
nuclear weapons at its disposal and the ability to deliver them anywhere on the planet.
Imperialism is a system integrated with and relying upon militarism to break down all
political barriers and to police the movement of finance capital and to ensure its global
dominance and expansion. Militarism is used by imperialism to intimidate and suppress
opposition to its objectives, whether such opposition arises from the popular masses or
from the reaction of indigenous ruling classes resisting integration into the one or another
imperialist system or group.
Moreover, the constant demand for the training of military personnel, its deployment, for
weaponry, supplies, maintenance, transportation, science and technology has become a
permanent integrated component of capitalist production demanding high volumes of
capital investment and labour. The development of weapons systems is the antithesis of
economic progress, drawing into its production and maintenance vast quantities of capital
and resources that competes with the non‐military sectors of the economy and robs and
depletes the state of the financial resources it requires to function.
The Struggle for Socialism in the Age of Imperialism
The process of struggle in which labouring humanity realizes that imperialism, capitalism in
the 21st century, is the root cause of wars, the plunderer, the despoiler, the degrader of the
planet, the system that prevents the achievement of peace, prevents the eradication of
poverty and human misery and is the obstacle to creating a new, peaceful and truly human
society; it is that process of struggle and that realization that is in fact the actual form and
content of the modern revolutionary mass struggle for socialism.
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Between imperialism and socialism there are no other intervening historical stages, no other
historical “rungs in the ladder”. Imperialism is the final stage in the development of
capitalism, the era of imperialist wars of expansion and occupation and the intense
resistance of the people’s of all countries and regions of the planet. Imperialism is the era of
anti‐imperialist and socialist revolution.
The modern revolutionary mass struggle for socialism arises from within and is a reaction to
aggressive imperialist global expansion. The aggressiveness of imperialism is its main
characteristic expressed in the violation of the sovereignty of the people’s, contempt for the
achievements of human labour, evolved civilizations, modern and developing societies,
language, arts, customs and traditions and now, the ultimate aggression, the destruction of
the natural environment that sustains all life.
The anti‐imperialist struggle is epochal, non‐uniform and develops in leaps, resulting in
historic breakthroughs and counter‐revolutionary setbacks. Its overall historical tendency is
to unity and strength and its most powerful asset is the growing consciousness of the
masses and their capacity to learn from the experience of struggle to overcome and defeat
imperialism.
The process by which labouring humanity realizes that the modern revolutionary mass
struggle for socialism today is rooted in, and is a continuation of, an objective historical
materialist reality that is both understandable and predictable, the more readily the
oppressed and exploited people will seek to take from past struggles what is useful and to
creatively apply that experience to solve the modern problems of the struggle for socialism.
Moreover, as labouring humanity realizes that imperialism is moribund, decaying and dying
capitalism, that it grows and develops as an excrescence on human development that is
bound to be removed or bound to destroy the host, the human race, the more urgently will
labouring humanity act to hasten its end. And as the labouring masses realize that they
occupy in modern society the position of the growing and progressive majority of humanity
the more readily they will embrace the concept of the necessity of revolutionary solutions to
guarantee the future of human life and global survival.
The Crisis of Imperialism
The imperialist system is crisis ridden and is incapable of further progressive development.
Imperialist development is anarchic and competitive. Competition among leading imperialist
states to gain advantage in the struggle to re‐divide markets, seize resources, and re‐order
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the exploitation of the labouring masses, is an objective reality in which today's class
struggles unfold. All classes and social groups are forced to take into account the speed and
complexity of the changes taking place in productive forces of the world's capitalist
economy, the main factor being its uneven development.
The threat of falling behind, of possessing insufficient military, economic or political
influence in the struggle for profit share is a considerable driving force in the internal politics
of imperialist states resulting in transitory alliances followed by periods of inter‐imperialist
stresses and antagonisms, proxy wars and the threat of inter‐imperialist war.
US Imperialism
A one dimensional or mechanistic view of modern imperialism descends into a descriptive
analysis of what is rather than what is becoming. The description of the world as unipolar,
dominated by the leading imperialist state, US imperialism is simplistic and inadequate to
explain all of the contradictory contending forces at play. Imperialism in its evolution to its
present phase has seen the rise and decline of several imperialist alliances and
collaborations leading to inter‐imperialist wars and realignments of imperialist power and
that process is not over.
The long period of ascendancy of US imperialism following WW1, and its meteoric rise to
dominance following WW2 has entered a period of quantifiable stagnation and decline that
it cannot stop. The much heralded new phase in US imperialist dominance following the
counter revolutionary undermining and fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist system of
states, dubbed the “end of history” that should have resulted in US imperialism ascending
to an unassailable zenith of power has happened only in the minds of the authors of the
“New American Century”.
The reality is that the post WW2 processes that made the global imperialist system
dependent upon the growth of the US economy for its further development, has become its
opposite where the US economy has now become dependent for the maintenance of its
economic growth on the further development of the global economy. The inability of certain
US imperialist forces to accept and adjust to the new objective reality causes internal
political crisis within the USA and realignments among imperialist states.
The crisis phenomena in the US economy have become a liability that many of its capitalist
competitors can no longer afford. The strident demand of US imperialism, backed up by US
military power, for the lion's share of global markets, energy and raw material resources,
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investment capital, and labour power, is neither realistic nor sustainable in the context of
overall global capitalist competition and expansion. There are no imperialist power elites
that have voluntarily given up their drive for a growing share of the exploitation of the
world's people and resources and there are new ones, such as Canada, arriving at the global
imperialist table demanding more.
War and Imperialist Expansion
War, always an option of imperialism to project its power now includes the persistent
demand by the US ruling elite to elevate war as the preferred option to project imperialist
power. Since the USA has the most powerful military, it follows that "allies" are expected to
subordinate their military doctrines to the general aims of US imperialism. This expectation
adds to inter‐imperialist irritations and differences and in particular becomes a driver of
internal political contradictions as has happened in Canada where the ruling class is not
united on the form of the use of military power to project its economic power abroad.
Committing domestic forces to US wars is anathema to the masses in the advanced
capitalist countries that have had enough of US fomented wars. The commitment of US‐
NATO or EU troops on the ground, in foreign countries, engaged in aggressive warfare,
operating under contrived and illegal mandates is rejected by the masses and is a source of
growing friction in the imperialist camp and inside each of its member states.
The intent of US imperialism to destroy the very idea of the management of international
conflict and its attempts to impose unilateralism in matters of war and aggression are a
source of political conflict among the imperialist powers. While there is a large measure of
unanimity among the imperialist states on the goal of restructuring the United Nations to
undermine its Charter and convert it to a rich nations club, there is no agreement to
abandon it entirely, recognizing the resulting chaos.
Imperialist strategy cannot be fully understood from studying only the world view of its
most extremist elements such as now hold power in Washington. The sum total of
imperialist views must be considered including those that out of self‐interest may have an
appraisal of international economic and political developments that can be used by the
progressive forces in the interests of weakening the war option.
The people of the planet oppose imperialist war and its consequences for their lives and
their future. The working people are coerced into imperialist war, misled into imperialist
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war, and instinctively seek out and support options to prevent and end it once it is
instigated.
The struggle against militarism and war is a powerful and unifying element among all of the
anti‐imperialist forces because it combines many progressive causes in one concentrated
demand, to ban war in the 21st century as an acceptable means of settling international
conflict. What may not have been possible in the pre‐nuclear age has emerged as a necessity
in the current century of imperialist development, because of the presence of vast stock
piles of deployable nuclear weapons. Banning war has been posed by history as a necessity
for its survival and further development.
Next: A Revolutionary Theory of Mass Struggle for Socialism
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