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Essential Works of Lenin
As we have seen, the most deep-rooted economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and exists in the general capitalist environment of commodity production and competition, and remains in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, this capitalist monopoly inevitably gives rise to a tendency to stagnation and decay. As monopoly prices become fixed, even temporarily, the stimulus to technical and, consequently, to all progress, disappears to a certain extent, and to that extent, also, the economic possibility arises of deliberately retarding technical progress. For instance, in America, a certain Mr. Owens invented a machine which revolutionized the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle manufacturing trust purchased Owens' patent, but refrained from utilizing it.
Certainly, monopoly cannot, under capitalism, eliminate competition in the world market completely and for a long period of time (and this, by the by, is one of the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperialism is so absurd). Certainly the possibility of reducing cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements is an influence in the direction of change. Nevertheless, the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is the feature of monopoly, continues, and in certain branches of industry, in certain countries, for certain periods of time, it becomes predominant.
The monopoly of ownership of very extensive, rich or well-situated colonies operates in the same direction.
Moreover, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, which, as we have seen, amounts to 100 to 150 billion francs in various securities.
Hence the extraordinary growth of the class, or rather of the category, of bondholders (rentiers), people who live by clipping coupons, who take no part whatever in production, whose p…
From Lenin’s Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism
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