Lenin’s Imperialism in the
21st Century
Five Features of Monopoly
Capitalism/Modern Imperialism:
-concentration of production
and capital leading to
monopolies that dominate the
economy
-the merger of industrial and
bank capital, translating into
finance capital, that lead to the
rule of finance oligarchy
-the export of surplus capital to
other countries driving
imperialist expansion
-the formation of
internationahiel cartels or
economic alliances that carve
up the world
-the complete division of the
world among the imperialist
powers
The Second Century of
Imperialism by: Antonio
Tujan Jr.
-The second century of
imperialism was ushered by the
second world war and the
postwar economic boom
--Consolidated international
policies and institutions under
its control such as the monetary
system, the IMF, financial
institutions and economic
development institutions
-Imperialism → neoliberalism
-US expanded capitalism
through the UN, World Bank,
IMF, and UNRRA, Marshall
Plan etc
-The US built itself as the center
of global financial network
through expanding bank
branches, continued extension
of US foreign oil, mining and
manufacturing interests, spread
of military bases, penetration of
areas by government military
and economic aid
--peg/equation of dollar with
gold
--International Bank for
Reconstruction and
Development → World Bank
-Neocolonial trade and
investment structures are
another key feature of the
global imperialist system
-ISI: Import substitution
industrialization
-UNDP organized the Ranis
Mission Report
-LIEO: labor intensive export
oriented
-EOI: export oriented
industrialization
-Mont Pelerin Society founded
by Friedrich August von Hayek
presented that neoliberalism
was intended to challenge
capitalism
-Neoliberalism: a set of ideas or
doctrine that holds free market
capitalism as the best way of
ensuring prosperity and
freedom for all
-There is no such phenomenon
as a free market
-UK: Thatcher administration
(monetary policy orientation)
-US: Reagan administration
(taxes as the primary source of
poor economic performance)
-SAP: structural adjustment
program (widely felt form of
neoliberalism)
-NIE: newly industrializing
economies
-First wave of neoliberalism
aimed to stop the growing
influence of communism in the
third world countries
-GATT: General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade
-Agricultural sector is the
foundation of many economies
in the global south
-Washington Consensus: global
framework for proper economic
development (LAPIDA)
-MAI: multilateral agreement
investment
-Globalization = economic
integration mainly through
international trade and
investment
-Subcontracting or production
globalization
-Protracted depression
-Increasing monopoly
-High food prices have become
the new normal
-Andrew Haldane: chief
economist at the Bank of
England
-Part one (Anglo-Saxon crisis),
Part two (euro-area crisis), Part
three (emerging market)
-QE: quantitive easing
-Cold war between US and EU
-The biggest military traders are
also the biggest arms traders
-UN Security Council (US,
Russia, France, UK and China
+ Germany and Italy)
-End the scourge that is
imperialism through a people’s
revolutionary war and build
socialism
Notes on Monopoly Capital in
the 21st Century by: Paul
Quintos
-Monopoly Capitalism: last and
highest stage of capitalism
(modern imperialism)
-Transformation of competition
into monopoly is the most
important phenomena of
modern capitalist economy
-Perfectly Competitive Markets:
1. many firms selling same
products
2. each firm has a small market
share
3. all firms are price takers
4. no barriers to exit or entry
5. all buyers have complete
information about the products
-Marxists say that the state is
not neutral but an instrument of
the ruling class in society
-Marxism is about the working
classes capturing state power,
democratizing ownership and
control over the means of
production and transforming
class relations towards
socialism and ultimately
communism
-Agrochemical, pharmaceutical
companies, automotive,
transportation courier and
postal, technology firms
-NEM: non-equity modes (ex.
Contract manufacturing)
-GVC: global value chains
-Financial Oligarchies: small
number of powerful capitalists
that control finance capital by
owning the biggest banks and
finance houses as well as the
biggest industrial corporations
-Financialization: the process
whereby profit increasingly
takes place through trading of
financial assets and speculative
activities rather than through
investment in production
-Monopoly capitalists need their
home state to pave the way for
their overseas operations by
creating the “enabling
conditions”
-China: One Belt One Road
project
-RCEP: Regional
Comprehensive Economic
Partnership
New Forms of Exploitation of
Africa by Monopoly
Capitalism by: Demba
Moussa Dembele
-John Hobson (1902): first
pointed out the transformation
of capitalism to imperialism
-Rudolph Hilferding
-Monopoly Capitalism
1. Concentration of capital and
production
2. Concentration of banks and
the rise of finance capital
3. Dominance of finance capital
and financial oligarchy
4. Exportation of capital
5. Colonial conquests and
expansion accelerated with the
era of imperialism
-Monopoly capitalism signals
the beginning of the end of
capitalism
-Walter Rodney: How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa
-Kwame Nkrumah:
Neocolonialism, The Last Stage
of Imperialism
-Neocolonialism is an indirect
control over a state and over
key economic and financial
sectors
-Balkanization: division into
small and weak states
-Tanzania was seen as the
Mecca of African Revolutions
-Kwane Nkrumah first president
of Ghana
-Neocolonialism is not only an
economic, financial and political
phenomenon but also a cultural,
religious and ideological
phenomenon
-Rudyard Kipling: the white
man’s burden
-Samir Amin: analysis of
imperialism was vindicated by
the collapse of market
fundamentalism
-The Triad: US, Japan, EU
1. access to natural resources
2. money and finance
3. mass communication
4. arms of mass destruction
5. technology
-Two track approach: imposing
neoliberal policies and
increased militarization
-AFRICOM: Africa Command
-Flintlock: high level contacts
and military drills
The Current Phase of
Imperialism and China by:
Pao-yu Ching
-Imperialism is a qualitative
change in the capitalist
relations of production when
monopoly finance gained
control
-Imperialist countries used
exports of their surplus products
as a way to relieve the pressure
of over-production
-US is the only country in the
world not obligated to pay its
debt.
-Major Characteristics of the
Current Phase of Imperialism
1. The Hegemonic Status of US
dollar and the US domination in
International Finance
2. The Internationalization of
Production and Accumulation
3. The Interconnectedness of
the Global Capitalist Class
4. Unresolvable and Deepening
Contradictions between the
Capitalist State and its people
-Dollar Hegemony
-Renminbi, Chinese currency
Imperialism, Ultra-
imperialism and the Rise of
China
-Establishment of Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank
-One Belt, One Road
-Belt and Road Initiative
-3 centers of monopoly
capitalism: US, Europe
(Germany, Britain, France),
Asia (China and Japan)
-Tools that imperialists use to
plunder the world: Dollar
empire, financial pillage,
resource monopoly,
technological monopoly
Conflicts and crises of the
imperialist world:
-Conflict between labor and
capital, -monopolistic power
escalation and overproduction
-conflicts among imperialists
-hegemonic competitions can
provide new opportunities for
opressed nations
-ecological crisis and depletion
of resources
-Zenith state of capitalism:
directly combines the power of
the state, together with a
country’s ruling political party,
its military, its industrial and
financial capital under one
command
Lenin’s Theory of
Imperialism and the 21st
century American Empire by
Roland Simbulan
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov a.k.a
Lenin
- Lenin’s Imperialism written in
1916
-Law of Uneven
Development: as some
imperialist powers expand and
outstep others, they put forward
the demand for a re-division of
the world corresponding to the
new balance of forces
-Rosa Luxembourg - The
Accumulation of Capital
-Hilferding - Finance Capital
-Bukharin - Imperialism and the
World Economy
-US Global Commands
-Us African Command - 53
African countries
-US European Command -
covering Europe, Greenland,
Atalantic, and Arctic Ocean
-US Central Command - Middle
East
-US Pacific Command - North
and West Pacific Ocean, South
Pacific Ocean, China and India
-US Northern Command -
Continental US, Canada, Arctic
Ocean to North Pole
-US Southern Command -
Carribean
-US Special Operations
Command - Operations
anywhere in the world when
needed
-US Transport Command
-US Space Command
-US Strategic Command
-Mystic - which collect metadata
and content from mobile calls
and text messages
- Prism - place to collect
internet stored communications
in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur,
Phnom Penh, Bangkok,
Yangon, Taiwan, HK, Shanghai
-Ed Snowden, whistle blower
-soft power, cultural hegemony
-Space-based assets for
C41SR: Command, Control,
Communications, Computers,
Intelligence, Surveillance, and
Reconnaissance
A Century of Rivalries and
Wars by Pio Verzola Jr.
-First 6 imperialist countries:
US, Germany, Japan, France,
Great Britain, and Russia
-Supra-imperialism: Union of all
imperialist states in which
finance capital shall have
become a single global
monopoly exploting the world
-Post World War I
-League of Nations in 1920, to
prevent wars
-World War II
-Axis alliance: Germany Japan,
Italy
-United States, United Kingdom
and the Commonwealth, Soviet
Union, Republic of China,
Poland, France, Yugoslavia
-US as number 1 police
-The Vietnam War era
-Heavy military spending
-Japanese militarism was
revived as the US junior partner
in Asia
-Reeling from defeats,
demoralization, huge expenses,
massive anti-war protests, and
political isolation worldwide, US
had no choice but to gracefully
exit from Indochina under the
1972 Paris peace agreement
-Proxy wars
-Post-Vietnam Period
-Third World countries and
peoples became more restive
-The rise of Third World was
described by Sison as having
passed through two phases
st
• 1 phase from 1945 to
1960
• 2nd phase from 1960 to
1970
-Bandung Conference - 29 Afro-
Asian countries
-Non-aligned Movement with
101 countries as members
-Group 77 currently has 134
member-countries
-Post Cold War period
-Unipolar imperialism started
with the collapse of the Soviet
bloc thus the US dominated the
entire imperialist camp
-Islamic terrorism - Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Syria
-Jihadist groups that the US
used as attack dogs on a long
leash to destabilize and
eventually control other
countries
- Russia’s Collective Security
Treaty Organization now serves
as NATO’s rival in Central
Eurasian belt
- BRICS - Brazil Russia, India,
China, and South Africa
-The Russia-backed alliance of
Iran, Iraq, Syria vs US-Israel-
Saudi
-Only a proletarian revolution
can lead humanity out of the
impasse which imperialism
created.
The Future of Imperialism
and Socialism by Prof. Jose
Maria Sison
-Social transformations are
cumulative but no unilinear,
they follow a zigzag course.
-Paris Commune served as the
prototype of the proletarian
class dictatorship
-Lenin upheld, defended, and
further developed Mar and
Engels ideology
-He elaborated on the law of
uneven development to indicate
that socialism can arise from
weakest link among the
imperialist powers
-Inter-imperialist war as the
even of socialist revolution
-Successfully led the Bolshevik
party in overthrowing the
Provisional Government heady
by Kerensky in Petrogad on
October 25, 1917 (November 7
in Gregorian calendar)
-Stalin built the Soviet socialist
economy from 1928 to 1940
and rebuilding it from 1945 to
1953
-Modern revisionism may be
described as an all-round
ideological, poltical, and
economic, social line and
practice by anvolwedly
communist party claiming to be
engaged in the creative
application of Marxism-
Leninism
-Nikita Khrushchev went to
power after Stalin died and
brouht back capitalism by
autonomization of state
enterprises, privatization of
lands
-Ended his reign in a coup led
by Brezhnev clique.
-Brezhnev made a limited and
partial rehabilitation of Stalin.
-Engaged in arms races
-Socialism fully converted to
monopoly capitalism
-“Limited sovereignity” and
“International proletarian
dictatorship”
-Gorbachov engaged in
systematic campaign of
deception.
- Perestroika - reconstruction of
Communist economy
-Glasnost - The policy or
practice of more open
consultative government and
wider dissemination of
information
-Maoism is the third stage in the
development of the theory and
practice of the proletarian
revolution after the earlier
stages of Marxism and
Leninism.
-Great Leap Forward: 1959 -
1961 in establishing the
comunes and socialist industry
-Cultural Revolution
-Sabotaged by Liu Shaochi and
Deng Xiaoping