On Inperialism

Call me absolutely incompetent, but I somehow do just not mange do get a decent meal here in Paris. My running theory is that Alsatian restaurants in Paris are founded by enemies of the Alsace only to ruin the reputation of Alsatian cuisine.

Despite having an awful dinner on the plate (again), I was blessed with thought-provoking dinner-companion. He is former Eastern European diplomat who studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (I had lunch there once). Among a lot of things we could not avoid to discuss the current economic situation and he brought up Lenin's definition of Imperialism:

1. the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life;
2. the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this "finance capital", of a financial oligarchy;
3. the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance;
4. the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and
5. the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.