Lenin in Five Minutes: Imperialism

[Music] welcome to Lenin in five minutes today's topic Lenin's theory of imperialism to understand Lenin's arguments about imperialism we need to get a better grasp of one of the most central concepts in Lenin's geopolitics finance capital unfortunately capital in the Marxist terms is a very frustrating concept at fine Marx was not satisfied with defining capital simply as money or money used in the production process for Marx capital is a process that defines the social relations of production capital is value in the process of self valorisation and thus can manifest itself as money but can equally manifest itself as the commodities or the means of production involved in the productive process finance capital is then capital that has accumulated beyond the production process and circulates within the banking and investment structures most importantly finance capital is in constant motion and cannot be by definition simply accumulated money infrastructure or other commodities moreover finance capital is an alliance between arche firms and banking capital dominating the economy of the state Lenin actually drew a lot of his ideas about finance capital from Rudolf pilfered ings and dos vinhos kept atop though as we will see now Lenin built extensively on the concept Lenin showed the concentration of capital led to a stage of capitalism known as monopoly capitalism in this stage the export of goods is exceeded by the export of capital instead of investing in the living standards of the working class at home capital moves into foreign territories where profits are usually high for capital is scarce the price of land is relatively low wages are low raw materials are cheap capital has become overripe in the most developed capitalist countries so it seeks new markets Lenin agree that there might be periods of cooperation among the bourgeois camps in the international arena but he points out that such cooperation is largely situational and temporary especially in the context of the Second World War and the Cold War period afterwards capital found it beneficial to cooperate in the face of a larger threat this peaceful time was also in part possible because American capital emerged from the war as the unequivocal dominant economic force particularly in comparison to the decimated productive capabilities of its European counterpart Lenin allowed for these periods of exceptional relations but he stated that ultimately the nature of capitalism of the system of necessary competition mandates a return to the division of the world among various camps however beyond the division of the world Glenn emphasized the impetus to gain exclusive control of raw materials and tighter control of foreign markets that arose out of the globalizing conditions of the monopoly stage of capitalism having reached a certain stage of development in which concentration and accumulation of capitalism results in the growing circulation of finance capital overripe countries export their investments abroad as they do so they find their finance capital to naturally clash in areas of targeted investments so begins a painful process of drawing and redrawing carving and REE carving the boundaries between major empires as we witness China export its finance capital to underdeveloped parts of the world tensions rise between the young superpower and the old seat of power in the White House China and the US have already entered that stage of geopolitical restructuring the inevitable outcome of which will be dangerous conflict in summary Lenin's theory of international political economy fits perfectly in the mold in the last century after violent struggle for new markets abroad the major powers of the world collided in the form of two world wars that wreaked havoc on a global scale as American capital emerged dominant from the ashes of the world wars it was able to unify the international capitalist class against the threat that far outweighed the dangers of been fighting a growing socialist bloc the USSR regardless of whether or not you think it was a truly socialist state did not play by the rules of the global market now a contrary it presented a model that was very dangerous to the entire capitalist mode of production as late as the 1970s the USSR and its allies posed a threat with the coalition of capitalist countries took very seriously however this temporary and uneasy alliance between major capitalist powers is gone not only that but the last half centuries has given a number of countries enough time to reach that stage of capitalism Lenin wrote about we are now on the brink of a totally new international dynamic that is already demonstrating attention we did not see during the fleeting Pax Americana as we return to a global arena defined by competition between major capitalist centers Lenin's International political economy will become increasingly relevant that's it for today's video put your thoughts on where we stand in global politics do you think Lenin's hypotheses can still be applied and if so what kind of future might we be headed for thanks for watching and until next time remember the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways the point is to change it

Channel: The Marxist Project

Views: 19,667

Rating: 4.9262471 out of 5

Keywords: marxism, leninism, imperialism, colonialism, marxist theory, class analysis, politics, economics, political economy, international political economy, geopolitics, socialism, communism, capitalism, capital, finance capital, monopolies, monopoly capitalism

Id: unCGQDKJ0p0

Length: 4min 53sec (293 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Fuuck that's good

[u/[deleted]]

This series is excellent