The classical theory of imperialism
Writing in the middle of the First World War, Nicolai Bukharin28 and Vladimir Lenin29 drew very different conclusions. They began with Hilferding's description of the integration of banking capital, industrial capital and the state, but removed from it any sense of the result being harmonious by stressing the way in which the role of the state in international economic competition led to war.
This was the overriding theme of Lenin's pamphlet Imperialism. Its aim was to be a "popular outline", showing how the resort to war was a product of the "latest stage of capitalism"-the original subtitle to the work:
Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a "natural law" . . . Marx had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly . . .
This is something quite diferent from the old free competition between manufacturers . . . producing for an unknown market. Concentration has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits) of a country and even . . . of the whole world . . . These sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations . . . The associations "divide" them up amongst themselves by agreement.30
Beyond Marx: Monopoly, War and the State
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