Imperialism

From Hobson's Choice

Imperialism is a form of predatory behavior by states. It includes the violent conquest of one community by another for the goal of subordination and domination. It also includes domination though economic control such as monopolies over basic needs, control of productive factors, and endemic racism.

The term poses certain problems, since the term has been used almost exclusively by Communists since the 1940's to describe the current behavior of Western powers. This is quite odd, since there is a deep split among bourgeois ideologues about whether or not imperialism is a necessary part of capitalism.^[1] Imperialism is obviously an unambiguous historical phase in the history of Europe, the USA, and Japan, and there are ample grounds for saying the USSR engaged in imperialism.

1 Context
2 A Schematic History of European Imperialism
3 Theories of Imperialism
4 Notes
5 See Also
6 External Links

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Context

The concept of empire is a slippery one. Prior to the 15th century, it is true that ruling families were obsessed with the expansion of their dominions. The most notorious expansionists were the Habsburgs, who largely absorbed the winnings of their one-time competitors in empire-building, the Luxembourgs.^[2] The Luxembourgs differed from rivals such as the Wittelsbachs, the Saxe-Coburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Bourbons insofar as they were able to accomplish their consolidation of power mainly through copious amounts of money. They also were entirely promiscuous about where they created their empire, rather like the extinct Luxembourg family whose lands they inherited, the early Wittelsbachs, or the Angevins.^[3]

John A. Hobson, in Imperialism briefly touches on the origins of the conception of empire, but plays down the role of the ruling houses of Continental Europe. For this, let us turn to Ludwig von Mises^[4]:

The princely state has no natural boundaries. To be an increaser of his family estate is the ideal of the prince; he strives to leave to his successor more land than he inherited from his father. To keep on acquiring new possessions until one encounters an equally strong or stronger adversary—that is the striving of kings. For fundamentally, their greed for lands knows no boundaries; the behavior of individual princes and the views of the literary champions of the princely idea agree on that. This principle threatens, above all, the existence of all smaller and weaker states. That they are nevertheless able to maintain themselves is attributable only to the jealousy of the big ones, which anxiously watch that none should become too strong. That is the conception of European equilibrium, which forms coalitions and breaks them up again.

For Hobson, the innocuous antecedent of the 19th century empire was the the Holy Roman Empire, which was aristocratic and reactionary, but nonetheless a loose confederation of states:

The root idea of empire in the ancient and mediæval world was that of a federation of States, under a hegemony, covering in general terms the entire known or recognised world, such as was held by Rome under the so-called pax Romana. When Roman citizens, with full civic rights, were found all over the explored world, in Africa and Asia, as well as in Gaul and Britain, Imperialism contained a genuine element of internationalism. With the fall of Rome this conception of a single empire wielding political authority over the civilised world did not disappear. On the contrary, it survived all the fluctuations of the Holy Roman Empire. Even after the definite split between the Eastern and Western sections had taken place at the close of the fourth century, the theory of a single State, divided for administrative purposes, survived. Beneath every cleavage or antagonism, and notwithstanding the severance of many independent kingdoms and provinces, this ideal unity of the empire lived. It formed the conscious avowed ideal of Charlemagne, though as a practical ambition confined to Western Europe. Rudolph of Habsburg not merely revived the idea, but laboured to realise it through Central Europe, while his descendant Charles V. gave a very real meaning to the term by gathering under the unity of his imperial rule the territories of Austria, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sicily, and Naples
From Imperialism: "Nationalism & Imperialism"; see map

The transition to nationalist imperialism (an inherent contradiction, since it denied the national sovereignty of other peoples) was accompanied by the rise of the bourgeoisie as a successor to, rather than competitor to, and adjunct to, monarchical power.

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A Schematic History of European Imperialism

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Imperialism before European Hegemony

The concept of imperial conquest is not terribly sophisticated, and many of the early states were in fact empires. For example, with the exception of Egypt, most of Southwest Asia and North Africa has been the territory of empires which briefly unified different settlements. This region is often referred to as the "crossroads of empires," with the population lacking the sort of tribal affinities that are regarded as normal in most of Europe. So, for example, Iraq is home to a palimpsest of distinct communities, most with ties beyond the boundaries of the modern nation. Since these communities overlap, talk of dividing the country to achieve communal peace is not an option. During the [[Lebanese Civil War], there was never any talk of repartitioning the country. Indeed, an interesting peculiarity of the Arab world is the absence of secessionist movements within it; radical movements favor the unification of the Arab world.

We may speak of several para-European empires in the region: the Achaemenid Empire (559-330 BCE), the Seleucid Empire (323-60 BCE), the Byzantine Empire (324-1453 CE), and the Crusader States. In the mid-6th century BCE, the Persians of the Zagros Highlands defeated the Medes and established an empire over much of Southwest Asia. Although the Persians were also of Southwest Asia, they were ethnically and linguistically related to the peoples of southern Europe. Much of the grander aspects of Hellenist culture were inherited from the Persians. Under the Seleucid (Hellenic) Empire, state institutions withered and cultural Hellenization was confined mostly to the Levant. The Eastern Roman Empire controlled the Levant to 637, when it was conquered by the Muslim caliph, Umar bin al-Khattab. However, the Muslim world was now governed from Damascus (to 744), which at that time was thoroughly Hellenized.^[5] The Levant was drawn into European political life mainly through the Greek Orthodox ties that flourished over the centuries, but also the diffusion of Southwest Asian concepts into the "vestigial Roman" states of Burgundy, Lombardy, and the Merovingian Empire.

The early empires, however, were usually understood as cohesive states. The Merovingians, for example, created a new aristocracy in their conquests, in the form of hereditary civil servants. The Roman Empire, quite different in character, was a hegemonic league whose core power was Italy; the Hellenized Italian city-states did not always conquer directly, but repeatedly intervened in local conflicts in order to restore the peace, leading to an eventual monopoly of military power. Later, the Byzantine Empire choked on its centralized administration. The Holy Roman Empire, wary of a similar fate, was to remain a model of lean administration. Within it or straddling its boundaries were interlocking dynastic networks that tied disparate and frequently detached polities scattered across Europe.^[6] These "houses" shifted territories constantly, until the reorganization of Europe under the Congress of Vienna (1814).

Imperialism had followed a reliable thread for 1200 years when the great powers met in Vienna. Expansion had become a permanent pursuit of the elites; consolidation had led to wars of extraordinary size, which eventually enslaved the aristocracies to finance capital. Now the elites could expand no further, and their activities were becoming a menace to the great financial interests of Europe. Besides, the intrigues of the royal houses was becoming a sideshow to the hugely important slave trade and sugar enterprises of the Americas.

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Hegemony

Main article on Hegemony

The novelty of the European empires of Hobson's day lay, as he said, in many states embracing imperialism at the same time. This had been done long before the Napoleonic Wars, or even the Protestant Reformation, and it was outside of the hierarchy of nations that had existed in Europe since the Merovingians. Adam Smith says of this matter as much as we need say here, viz.,

The Portuguese monopolized the East India trade to themselves for about a century, and it was only indirectly and through them that the other nations of Europe could either send out or receive any goods from that country. When the Netherlanders, in the beginning of the last century, began to encroach upon them, they vested their whole East India commerce in an exclusive company. The English, French, Swedes, and Danes have all followed their example, so that no great nation in Europe has ever yet had the benefit of a free commerce to the East Indies. No other reason need be assigned why it has never been so advantageous as the trade to America, which, between almost every nation of Europe and its own colonies, is free to all its subjects. The exclusive privileges of those East India companies, their great riches, the great favour and protection which these have procured them from their respective governments, have excited much envy against them. This envy has frequently represented their trade as altogether pernicious, on account of the great quantities of silver which it every year exports from the countries from which it is carried on.
Wealth of Nations, IV.1.33

Hegemony is usually understood to mean the one-sided ability to influence others. In contrast to an empire, which actually has formal political control over the affected territory, the hegemonic power merely has the power to influence events. As a hegemon within Europe, the HRE suffered from the extreme difficulties of maintaining control within its boundaries; and during those periods when it was strongest, its power to influence events in England, Denmark, France, or Italy was not necessarily decisive. Bold and determined leaders could and often did form powerful leagues against it.

Imperialism outside of Europe likewise often began with hegemony. The initial contacts of European "explorers" with Native Americans, Africans, and Asians was usually on a footing of military equality or inferiority. Likewise, European conquests in the Americas required allies; ignorance of the geography and lack of survival skills in the wilderness more than offset the European firearms and horses. Moreover, the hostility and mistrust of the European kingdoms towards each other was as intense as any other pair of neighboring empires in the world.

The Napoleonic Wars put an end to that. Initially French possessions overseas largely fell into British hands, but at the Congress of Vienna, most of these were restored as a down payment on a new harmony of great powers. Armed conflicts specifically over high-revenue colonies were to end; instead of armed companies waging wars with their own private armies, colonialism was under the sovereignty of the state, which (in turn) acknowledge the "rights" of its neighbors. Additionally, there was no longer a clash of monarchies which had characterized the previous millennium of European history; the monarchies were now part of a unifed metropole, unable to govern except by incurring untenable amounts of debt, and the great conflicts that would rock Europe hereafter were between rival classes.

The situation changed after 1815. For the first 15 years after this, there was the silence of chewing. The French and the Netherlands had received many of their most lucrative colonies back; the restoration of French authority was a major preoccupation, while the Netherlands had to deal with the political reorganization of their East India Colony.

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Empire

Main article on Trans-European Project

By 1830, European forces had resumed a fully offensive stance and were attacking on entirely new fronts. Algeria fell to the French in 1830; then the British began the Opium War (1839-1842), which led to a protracted land grab in China by all the European powers.^[7] The French and the British intervened in Lebanon (1840), established their spheres of influence in the Ottoman Empire. The French Navy blundered into a colonial conquest of Vietnam (1847),^[8] then began a campaign to conquer the interior of West Africa.^[9] Now Europe was acting as a global hegemon; French expansion was largely supportive of British expansion, despite strategic pretensions of mutual rivalry.

The shift to open conquest as a maximalist strategy was gradual, and depended on the peculiar motives of the European state at the time. Conquest of West Africa was generally hegemonic, especially in the British case, since expansion was done through the private sector.^[10] The European powers tended to wage war in Southwest Asia and North Africa in the same manner that has always been used in that region, with massive coordinated assaults and sudden conquest. Advances in wet, jungle climates with a dearth of navigable rivers tended to be more gradual and relied on regional allies. As the shift to open conquest replaced a scheme of hegemony, colonial campaign became extremely bloody and cruel. As a fairly routine affair, the transition from routine interference to overlordship was usually accompanied by massacres, enslavement of locals, and corruption of all local civilization.

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Imperialism & Totalitarianism

Main article on Imperialism & Totalitarianism

Furthermore, the machinery of totalitarian domination of other societies was gradually being turned on Europeans themselves. While the most spectacular example of this was the rise of fascism in Europe, there was a major worldwide endeavor to regiment the lives of workers and managers into paramilitary corporations.^[11] The standardization of working life, exemplified by the Ford Motor Company and the new industrial cities of the Ruhr, were stimulated on the supply side by the flood of dirt-cheap material resources plundered from the colonized world, and on the demand side by the depressed ratio of capital to labor caused by imperialism. With an immense share of the industrial world's saving annually tied up in the creation of costly war machines and the imperialist system of ecological exploitation, productivity per worker was high—but concentrated in the output of newly bloated state/corporate bureaucracies, war machinery, luxury goods for the bourgeoisie and bureaucracy, and centralized systems of mass consumption.

The paradox emerged, that the lower middle classes and blue collar workers of the developed world were often as desperate and financially precarious as ever, yet the economy of which they were a part produced far more debris and consumed far more resources than ever before. The standard of consumption was determined by the bourgeoisie, and all consumers from William Randolph Heart on downward tended to replicate this pattern of consumption in miniature. Much more economical and satisfying modes of satisfying human needs existed, but they were abandoned. Jingoism of the imperialist epoch was now hardened into anti-radical dogma and Red Scares; social democrats were thrashed into submission or simply barred from political participation outright. From 1926 to 1939, the capitalist world was plunged into a depression that was widely understood, then and now, by excessive productive capacity. While the Great Powers entered WW2 out of dire necessity and strategic panic, and while the war against fascism created genuine social democracy in the countries that participated, the berserker rampage and racial hatreds roused by war with Japan probably contributed to a profound reaction that followed.

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Collapse of Empire

Main article on Collapse of Empire

European imperialism underwent several phases of collapse, few of which were decisive. The main problem was not so much declining control over the colonies, so much as the declining ability of European nation-states to cope with the demands of global empire. Increasingly the burden of colonial rule fell to the UK, which was wracked by the social problems created by its own empire.

European powers (including the USA) sought to retain as much as possible continued control over the political processes in their former colonies, and thereby preserve their substantial financial stakes in those countries. But doing so clashed with efforts to hang on to direct political power in other countries. Authorities in the Netherlands, for example, discovered that they could easily defeat the wars of national liberation in the Dutch East Indies, but they were obligated to maintain military occupation of huge territories at great expense, while antagonizing trading partners. In 1950, therefore, the Netherlands conceded Indonesian independence, while essentially passing on to the US and the UK the job of preserving Netherlander investments in the region. Belgium probably could have restored military control over the Congo in the 1960's if its leadership had enjoyed unlimited support and if the the rest of the world had not been outraged by the affair. As it was, this small European powerhouse that relied heavily on exports and services, particularly throughout the rest of Africa, could not afford such recrimination. It handed off the matter to the United Nations within weeks of the army mutiny, while continuing to work behind the scenes to ensure a favorable political outcome.^[12]

The collapse of the French colony in Algeria is another category.^[13] The insurgency itself, particularly outside of Algiers, was almost completely squashed even before the 1958 mutiny that brought De Gaulle to power. However, the efforts by the Paris authorities to establish some form of postwar settlement that would preclude a return to insurgency sparked a lingering civil war within the White population of Algeria and profound sectional divisions within France itself. This "civil war," in which OAS terrorists massacred intelligence agents from the very army defending the European presence in Algeria, was what forced a settlement in favor of the militarily defeated FLN.

After the events of 1962-63, the French and Algerian governments essentially collaborated to restore French hegemony in North Africa in exchange for support of a protracted military junta. About 30,000 French nationals and perhaps one million Algerians died in the war, and yet the objectives of neither the French nation (viz., the creation of a genuinely French Algeria) nor those of the Algerian people (viz., liberation) were achieved. Hegemony, while a "softer" form of imperialism, thwarted the ends of both despite immense sacrifice of blood and hope.

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Theories of Imperialism

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J.A. Hobson

Main article on J.A. Hobson's Imperialism

This site relies most heavily on the theories of John A Hobson's Imperialism (discussed extensively on that page). While these are the most relevant to this site, they have a dedicated article so discussion of them here is quite brief.

Hobson's theories of imperialism were essentially fourfold in character, and he organized them in accordance with the polemic defenses of each. He identified a financial motivation for imperialism; finance capital, as an interested economic class, promotes imperialism in large measure through control of the media.^[14] The captive media promotes jingoism and war fever, particularly against weak countries; gradually, the expansionist ambitions of finance capital become the touchstone of national pride, and opposition to them is characterized as treason. Yet the benefits of conquest are usually confined to the elites, who enjoy higher returns on investments in colonies than in their own country. Critiques of this aspect of Hobson's theory (usually the only one to which anyone pays attention) generally assume that the European nations plus the USA were a medley of virtually unrelated metropoles; if one accepts that there was only one real metropole, divided into several administrative districts called "nations," then Hobson's theory is perfectly correct.

The other versions are "scientific" imperialism, which are based on the concept that imperialism is a consummation of the eternal struggle for supremacy among species (and that other "races" of man must be crushed in order to secure the world's resources for the best one); "social" imperialism, which proposes to use colonial projects to redeem and absorb the economic losers in the metropole; and protectionist imperialism, which seeks markets for home manufactures. A common thread of Hobson's is that the metropoles tend to pool benefits, intentionally or otherwise, but classes do not. Hence, industrialists in France, Britain, and Germany may benefit from some aspects of imperialism, but workers in all three countries suffer. Another aspect of his rejoinders is that they argue from the need for everlasting expansionism in order to secure benefits, something that obviously cannot exist. The supply of Africas to conquer is finite; once Africa has been underdeveloped, the economy of Europe will be stuck with demand schedule for an underdeveloped continent and a glutted one. At that point the Europeans would be required to think of alternative arrangements, so why not do so now?

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V.I. Lenin

Unfortunately for understanding the subject matter, Lenin's view of imperialism is frequently mistaken for that of Hobson, who did not disavow Lenin's praise for his book. Yet Lenin and Hobson were actually worlds apart. Hobson was not a Marxist and did not see imperialism as an inevitable phase of capitalism; Lenin did. Hobson was somewhat hopeful that capitalism could be captured by parliamentary democracy; Lenin was utterly scornful of the concept, and believed that a revolution was required that would destroy the social order.^[15] Lenin defines imperialism thus:

Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it "amicably" among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.
Emphasis in original; "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism," Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata (December 1916)

The distinction here is significant. For Lenin, to paraphrase the German historian^[16], the capitalist world was not an empire with corporations, but corporations with an empire. Rather than a universe of parliaments, judiciaries, foreign policies, and colonies defined by treaties, Lenin saw the situation as a gangland of armed trusts, syndicates and cartels running amok. Colonial empires were thus the obvious object of capitalist wars, and the World War raging at the time he wrote the passage above is widely said to have been over colonial possessions.

Lenin's analysis did not include the coexistence of different explanations; however, he did focus on the one, the role of finance capital, far more than Hobson had 14 years earlier. Lenin had incorporated many ideas of Rudolf Hilferding,^[17] who developed the concept of "superexploitation" and "superprofits." The essential idea here was that advanced capitalist countries, through their domination of finance capital, could reap another layer of economic rent from the colonized nations, and bribe their working classes with this rent. Both Lenin and Hilferding were especially interested in the role of monopoly, which they believed had completely transformed the nature of the once-democratic USA and UK into a militaristic, bureaucratic replica of the absolutist states of Europe. Applied to the control of finance capital, it meant the creation of a ruling class of nations, as well as ruling classes within each nation.

Leninist ideas have in many respects percolated to the view of imperialism, even among people who would be horrified to be identified as such. For example, the obsession with finance capital was embraced by the early hypernationalists of the 19th century, who naturally found a rationale for their hatred of Jews. Later, Mussolini promised to liquidate the big financiers with masses of army veterans.^[18] Prior to taking power, the NSDAP introduced measures in the Reichstag for nationalizing the major banks. At the same time, the Fascists and Nazis invoked ideas about their respective country being a "proletarian" among nations. The founder of the NSDAP declared "Toiling Germany is the victim of the greedy Western powers."^[19] A founding "intellectual" of the Nazi movement, though never an actual member, was Arthur Möller van den Bruck, who likewise borrowed the idea of equating nations with oppressed classes: "Socialism... cannot give justice to men if there is no previous justice to nations." Similar rhetoric was used by Gregor Strasser. Even Göbbels referred to the Nazi goal as having "Germany no longer be proletarian of the universe." This took the most important concept of Marxist thought out of Communism and tossed it aside. The unity of classes despite national divisions, was dismissed in favor of a merging of nationalism with class struggle.^[20]

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Joseph A Schumpeter

Schumpeter and economists of the Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises, inter alia) have argued that, on the contrary, capitalism was wholly unrelated to imperialism. Schumpeter's main argument is that capitalism is an adaptive organism that absorbs all of the social developments of history; hence, the sorts of quo bono arguments used by Marxists would describe anything that happened as the highest stage of capitalism.^[21] Schumpeter cited several case studies in British history to support his view that the term imperialism was often abused, and that much so-called imperialism was merely utilization of inevitable necessity (in other words, the UK's conquest of India grew out of the need for trade and the defense of trading interests, not an aggressive policy of expansion. Schumpeter further explains that the real imperialisms of Continental Europe grew out of standing military castes and absolutist states.

Schumpeter and von Mises both believed that the natural interests of capitalism lay with pacificism, since war disrupts trade and imposes immense tax burdens, if not the risk of dictatorship and mass expropriation. Schumpeter's views have been heavily influential on the neoconservative movement.

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Notes

↑ For a negative position, see Joseph A. Schumpeter, "The Sociology of Imperialisms," anthologized in The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, Princeton University Press (1991; essay written in 1918?) p.141; or anarcho-capitalist Joseph T. Salerno, "Imperialism and the Logic of War Making" Ludwig von Mises Institute (2006). For the contrary view, see Niall Ferguson, Empire, Basic Books (2004) esp. p.xx. Allow me to repeat, Schumpeter, Salerno, and Ferguson are as pro-capitalism as it is possible to be. Obviously, anti-capitalist writers nearly always insist that imperialism is an ineluctable outcome of capitalism.
↑ Special thanks to Juraj Lišiak for his splendid site, "The Habsburgs."
↑ The Luxembourg family ruled over Luxembourg, Brabant (in Belgium), the modern-day Czech Republic, Lusatia (in modern Germany, southern Poland, and Hungary (see map). The Wittelsbachs initially ruled in Prussia, but later confined themselves to Bavaria. The Angevins were a Norman clan who took the name of Anjou, France, but later ruled over England, Hungary, and the future Czech Republic.
↑ Ludwig von Mises, "[II. The Nationality Principle in Politics]" in Nation, State, and Economy (1919)
↑ To convey an idea of the deep interchange between the Hellenized world of Umayyad Damascus, and the Hellenist-Christian world to the immediate north, one might as well use the case of Johannes of Damascus (676-749), one of the most important Greek Orthodox saints. It's probably no exaggeration to say that his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith is of the utmost importance to Eastern Christians. Johannes lived his entire life in a Damascus under the rule of the Umayyad caliphs, and used his position there to attack the Byzantine Emperor Leo III with impunity.
↑ Examples of this include the Angevin family of Gallicized Normans who seized power in England in 1154; branches ruled in Ireland, Jerusalem, Hungary & Croatia, Sicily & Naples, and Poland.
↑ Library of Congress, "China: the Opium War, 1839-42"
↑ Library of Congress, "Vietnam: the Nguyen Dynasty and Expanding French Influence"
↑ The best literature I've seen on this subject is Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate all the Brutes, New Press (April 1996). As a matter of a fact, this is one of the best books on any subject I've ever read.
↑ Library of Congress, "Nigeria: the Royal Nigeria Company"
↑ During the period 1955-1983, there was general reversal of this trend. Even today, the re-militarized corporation is mostly confined to the service sector in first world countries. See Olivier Zunz, Making America Corporate, University Of Chicago Press (1992), inter alia.
↑ The Belgian authorities passed a large number of reforms that drastically altered the status of Congolese; for example, prior to 1952, Congolese were not allowed to own land in their own country, much less participate politically. There were large numbers of Congolese in the colonial army, but no officers. Indeed, almost no Congolese had any form of formal post-secondary education. By 1956 there was limited franchise for urban Congolese, but the army remained under Belgian management until the June 1960 mutiny. (Library of Congress Country Study for Congo, "Timeline of Important Events." A crucial phase of post-"independence" Belgian intervention was support for the seceding state of Katanga LoC. Belgians reading this ought to understand that we're not singling out Belgium for special rebuke; all of the colonial powers did comparable things in different theaters.
↑ The primary reference on this is Alistair Horne's masterpiece, A Savage War of Peace, Viking (1978). See also Colonel Karl Goetzke, US Army, "Review of the U.S. Army's Current Counterinsurgency Doctrine Using the Algerian War of National Liberation" , Strategic Studies Institute (2005)
↑ Hobson did not devote much time to explaining how finance capital controlled the media, partly because it was like explaining how mineral resources on the bottom of the ocean floor are difficult to obtain. Newspapers and their modern kindred, television, radio, and web-based news media, are heavily reliant on advertising revenue and chronically in debt. Typically they are dependent upon the backing of large holding companies and provide them with prestige.
↑ This is a pretty fundamental attitude of Lenin, and one he convincingly attributes to Marx. See, for example, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, "How Kautsky Turned Marx Into A Common Liberal" (1918). The chapter linked is especially illustrative of Lenin's personality.
↑ Friedrich von Schrötter, "Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country which served as headquarters and food magazine"; Hans Rosenberg, [Bureaucracy, Aristocracy, and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660-1815], Harvard University Press (1958), p.43.
↑ Rudolf Hilferding (trans. by M Watnick and S Gordon), Finance Capital: a Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development Routledge (1981; originally published in 1910). See also Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (complete text online); translator unknown (1916).
↑ Quoted by Daniel Guerin in Fascism and Big Business, Monad Press/Pathfinder (1973; original published in 1939), p.83. Mussolini wrote this in Popolo d'Italia, 19 June 1919.
↑ His name was Anton Drexler. Ibid., p.78
↑ Quote is found in Arthur Möller van den Bruck, Germany's Third Empire (1922), III. This site does not link to far right sites or articles, but the book is found easily on the internet. All of the elements of Nazi ideology are there. Van den Bruck's rants about the oppression of nations is too vague to explicitly outline the concept of finance capital as clearly as Hilferding/Lenin, and in fact, such a contention would have been absurd. Mentioned on p.78 of Guerin, Fascism and Big Business.
↑ Schumpeter's views on imperialism are found in his essay, "The Sociology of Imperialism," (trans. by Heinz Norden) The World Publishing/Meridian (1919).