Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
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| Author | Vladimir Lenin |
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| Original title | Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма |
| Country | Russian Republic |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre | Social criticism |
| Published | 1917 Zhizn' i znanie (written 1916) |
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin's modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867).
In his Prefaces, Lenin states that the First World War (1914–1918) was "an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war" among empires, whose historical and economic background must be studied "to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics".
In order for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism—the exportation and investment of capital to countries with underdeveloped economies. In turn, such financial behaviour leads to the division of the world among monopolist business companies and the great powers. Moreover, in the course of colonizing undeveloped countries, business and government eventually will engage in geopolitical conflict over the economic exploitation of large portions of the geographic world and its populaces. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism, requiring monopolies (of labour and natural-resource exploitation) and the exportation of finance capital (rather than goods) to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of said economic model. Furthermore, in the capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the (upper stratum of the working class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike).
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