Late Imperialism
Fifty Years After Harry Magdoff ’s The Age of Imperialism
by John Bellamy Foster, (Jul 01,2019)
[The article reproduced here is from the MONTHLY REVIEW, July-August 2019 issue. It critically
analyses and rejects various theories that negate the existence of imperialism and asserts the continued
validity of Lenin’s teachings on IMPERIALISM
- Editor.]
The single most influential largely complementary theories in and countries” and all “dependent
work on imperialism remains V. I. the Marxian tradition that included countries,” giving rise to revolution
Lenin’s classic study of a century such works as Rudolf Hilferding’s in the periphery against “inter-
ago, Imperialism: The Latest Stage Finance Capital (1910), Rosa national imperialism.”6
However, history in the
of Capitalism (better known by the Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of
title given to it following its first Capital (1913), and Nikolai Marxian conception is a dialectic of
publication, Imperialism : The Bukharin’s Imperialism and the continuity and change. By the
Highest Stage of Capitalism).1 W orld Economy (1915).4 Yet, 1960s, Lenin’s analysis, despite its
Lenin employed the term modern Lenin’s own analysis was unrivaled comprehensiveness, needed
imperialism or simply imperialism to in its ability to capture the dominant updating. In the post-Second World
refer to the age of concentrated world conditions up through the War era, the United States emerged
capital, during which the entire Second W orld W ar, including with near absolute hegemony over
world was being carved up by the accounting for the world wars the capitalist world economy. At the
leading
states
and
their themselves. A strong point in his same time, the world saw the
corporations, distinguishing the analysis was its concrete, historical greatest revolutionary wave in
imperialist stage from the character, divorced from rigid history associated with the break
colonialism/imperialism of the theoretical
formulae.
It with colonialism, the rise of
mercantilist and freely competitive encompassed
such
varied neocolonialism, and the emergence
stages of capitalism that preceded phenomena as the growth of of a rival sphere of post-
it. “Colonial policy and imperialism,” monopoly and financial capital, revolutionary society, including
Lenin insisted, “existed before this “division of the world among the states with socialist aspirations.7 In
latest [imperialist] stage of international trusts,” capital export, this
changed
atmosphere,
capitalism, and even before the race for energy and raw corresponding with the Cold War,
capitalism.”2
materials,
class
struggle, the United States and its allies
The new imperialist stage, geopolitical rivalry in the struggle presented a new ideology of
beginning in the last quarter of the for economic territory and spheres economic growth, development,
nineteenth century and extending of influence, the emergence of a aid, and modernization within the
into the twentieth century, was seen labor aristocracy in the capitalist capitalist ideological framework. An
as a product of the growth of giant core, and the contest for global and army of liberal and social
capitalist firms with monopoly regional hegemony.5
democratic intellectuals, including
power, the close connection forged
W hile emphasizing inter- such figures as Mark Blaug,
between these corporations and capitalist competition, Lenin also Benjamin J. Cohen, Robert W.
the nation-states in which they pointed to the hierarchy of nation- Tucker, and Barrington Moore Jr.,
arose, and the resulting struggle states, which served to divide the were enlisted in the 1960s and ’70s
for control of the world’s core powers from the poorer to deny the existence of economic
populations and resources— nations of the periphery that fell imperialism, if not imperialism more
leading to intercapitalist compe- within their imperial orbits. His generally, aiming their analysis at
tition and war. “If it were necessary analysis went beyond colonialism various figures on the left and in
to give the briefest possible to discuss neocolo-nialism in the United States in particular,
definition of imperialism [as a relation to Latin America. In the including Paul Baran, Paul Sweezy,
“special stage”],” Lenin wrote, “we 1920s, alert to the revolutionary William Appleman Williams, and
would have to say that imperialism struggles occurring in Mexico, Harry Magdoff.8
is the monopoly stage of Turkey, Persia, China, and India,
At the very center of the
capitalism.”3
Lenin pioneered in extending his intense debate on U.S. imperialism
Lenin’s general analysis of analysis to the consideration of all in the 1960s and ’70s in the context
imperialism belonged to a group of “imperialist-oppressed colonies of the Vietnam War was Magdoff’s
6
Class Struggle