Holy Crap! Was Lenin right!?

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, wherein the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capital. The final, imperialist stage of capitalism, originates in the financial function of generating greater profits than the home market can yield; thus, business exports (excess) capital, which, in due course, leads to the economic division of the world among international business monopolies, and imperial European states colonising large portions of the world to generate investment profits. Imperialism, thus, is an advanced stage of capitalism based upon monopoly and the export of capital — not goods, and of which colonialism is one but one feature (Bowles 2007).

The super-profits that colonial exploitation yields, permit business to bribe politicians — labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working class) — to politically thwart the risk of worker revolt in the capitalist homeland; thus, the new proletariat (working class) are the exploited workers in the Third World colonies of the European powers.

en.wikipedia.org...

In Lenin’s developing Marxism for Russian application, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) explains a development which Marx predicted: capitalism’s becoming a global system wherein advanced capitalist industrial nations export financial capital to colonial countries to exploit their resources and labour. This superexploitation of poorer countries allows the capitalist countries to maintain some homeland workers politically content with a slightly-higher standard of living, and so ensure peaceful labour-capital relations, (cf. labor aristocracy, globalization). Hence, a proletarian revolution could not occur in the developed capitalist countries while the imperialist global system was intact; thus an under-developed country would feature the first proletarian revolution, and Imperial Russia was the weakest country in the capitalist global system.[9] In the early twentieth century, Russia’s economy was primarily agrarian, effected with peasant and animal labour; under-developed when compared to industrialized Western Europe and North America.

en.wikipedia.org...




Please correct me if I am wrong, but does that sound eerily familiar to our current situation? I am not a communist and definitly not a follower of Vladimir Lenin, but I could not help but read it and immediately think of our current economic situation when analyzed in depth.

I would rather be under imperialism instead of communism.

reply to post by tauempire


really?
communism wasn't a bad thing, it was the facist dictators that tarnished it along with us propaganda.

Communism is a social structure in which classes are abolished and property is commonly controlled, as well as a political philosophy and social movement that advocates and aims to create such a society.

Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution and only possible after a transitional stage develops the productive forces, leading to a superabundance of goods and services.

Marx states that the only way to solve these problems is for the working class (proletariat), who according to Marx are the main producers of wealth in society and are exploited by the Capitalist-class (bourgeoisie), to replace the bourgeoisie as the ruling class in order to establish a free society, without class or racial divisions.

The dominant forms of communism, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism and Trotskyism are based on Marxism, as well as other forms of communism (such as Luxemburgism and Council communism), but non-Marxist versions of communism (such as Christian communism and Anarchist communism) also exist.

heared it all before but just ripped this off wiki.

Originally posted by Misoir
Please correct me if I am wrong, but does that sound eerily familiar to our current situation? I am not a communist and definitly not a follower of Vladimir Lenin, but I could not help but read it and immediately think of our current economic situation when analyzed in depth.

Yes he and Marx were right. But corruption destroyed their system just as it has destroyed ours. It was no more able to function in the real world than ours was.

They deal with such grand ideas. Means of distribution, free markets but they never took into account the total lack of moral fortitude the average man has.

In it's purest form, both communism and capitalism work very well. In reality though both systems become corrupt an ineffective because of party politics.

Maybe we'd have a better chance of seeing these social models work if we could take the party out of politics.

No, Lenin was wrong. he was totally wrong. What more could be said than, Lenin was so totally wrong.

It's so frustrating how the word communism and socialism has this automatic negative spin because of recent, and ridiculous, political propaganda. I'm begging you ATSers... PLEASE try unbiasedly researching these political, economic, and social systems before commenting. You just end up making yourself look ignorant otherwise.

Calling communism bad is just like saying Algebra is evil. Sure there are flaws, but and I had a dictator of a teacher in 8th grade, but that doesn't make it a good mathematics system.

Of the three main themes of Marx, religion, capitalism and social structure, he got two dead on, religion and capitalism.

Communism would only work if there was a system of strict oversight to eliminate corruption and greed. That's the difficult part, stopping the establishment of the "old boy network" that always ruins everything. Also several generations of drilling personal responsibility back into people's heads from the day they're born!!! (I know, never gonna happen, nanny state...)

Originally posted by belial259
Yes he and Marx were right. But corruption destroyed their system just as it has destroyed ours. It was no more able to function in the real world than ours was.

They deal with such grand ideas. Means of distribution, free markets but they never took into account the total lack of moral fortitude the average man has.

In it's purest form, both communism and capitalism work very well. In reality though both systems become corrupt an ineffective because of party politics.

Maybe we'd have a better chance of seeing these social models work if we could take the party out of politics.

Another perceptive person here on ATS. Stars and thumbs up for you!:-)

Mankind is flawed, and worse if he believes in no limits. and there the dangers of moral hazards lay...