“The societies of the dominated periphery no longer can wait,” said the great Egyptian economist Samir Amin, over half a century ago in the lively and re...
Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century - Monthly Review
John Smith teaches international political economy at Kingston University in London. This paper has been abstracted from his book Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, forthcoming from Monthly Review Press in... READ MORE
The myth of catch-up development: trends in core–periphery inequality from 1960 to 2023
The conventional narrative in international development holds that poorer countries are “catching up” with richer countries through the process of capitalist growth. This paper assesses this claim ...
Marxism & the Global South
A critical history of imperialism and dependency theory, from Marx on colonialism and Eurocentrism to Baran, Frank, Wallerstein, and Samir Amin.
Marxism & the Global South
A critical history of imperialism and dependency theory, from Marx on colonialism and Eurocentrism to Baran, Frank, Wallerstein, and Samir Amin.
Capitalism, Inequality, and the Myth of Catch-Up Development
Prevailing narratives in international development hold that poorer countries can and will "catch-up" with richer countries through the process of
‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished
A quote from 1984
In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.
The Limits to Growth: A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind
"I do not wish to seem overdramatic, but I can only conclude from the information that is available to me as Secretary–General, that the Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems I have mentioned will have reached such staggering proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control."
The demise of the nation state
The long read: After decades of globalisation, our political system has become obsolete – and spasms of resurgent nationalism are a sign of its irreversible decline
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
[1] Written in Zurich in January-June 1916. Lenin began to take note of new developments in capitalism long before the outbreak of the First World War. In several of his writings from 1895 to 1913—”Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social-Democratic Party” (1895-96); “The War in China” (1900); “The Lessons of the Crisis” (1901), “Review of Home Affairs” (1901); “Concentration of Production in Russia” (1912); “The Growth of Capitalist Wealth” (1913) “Backward Europe and Advanced Asia” (1913); “The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx” (1913); “Concerning Certain Speeches by Workers’ Deputies” (1912), and others—Lenin pointed out and analysed some characteristic aspects of the imperialist epoch— the concentration of production and the growth of monopoly; the export of capital; the struggle for new markets and spheres of influence; the internationalisation of economic relations; the parasitism and decay of capitalism; the growth of contradictions between labour and capital and the sharpening of the class struggle; and the creation of the material conditions for the transition to socialism. He devoted special attention to exposing predatory colonial policy, the fight for a division and redivision of the world, and the preparation of imperialist wars of aggrandisement. In his article, “Marxism and Revisionism”, written in 1908, he came out against the attempts to revise Marxism and undermine it from inside under the pretext of amending and correcting the theory in particular, Marx’s theory of crises. Lenin wrote: ‘The forms, the sequence, the picture of particular crises changed, but crises remained an inevitable component of the capitalist system. While uniting production, the cartels and trusts at the same time and in a way that was obvious to all, aggravated the anarchy of production, the insecurity of existence of the proletariat and the oppression of capital, thereby intensifying class antagonisms to an unprecedented degree. That capitalism is heading for a breakdown—in the sense both of individual political and economic crises and of the complete collapse of the entire capitalist system— has been made particularly clear, and on a particularly large scale, precisely by the new giant trusts” (see present edition, Vol. 15, pp. 35-36). Lenin kept abreast of all the latest writings on capitalism, as will be seen from his review of Hobson’s The Evolution of Modern Capitalism. In August 1904, Lenin began a translation of Hobson’s Imperialism, the manuscript of which has not yet been found. It was on the outbreak of the First World War that Lenin undertook a comprehensive study of the monopoly stage of capitalist development This was required by the working-class revolutionary struggle in Russia and other capitalist countries. In order to provide correct leadership for the revolutionary movement and combat the ideology of imperialist reaction and the reformist policy of conciliation with imperialists, it was necessary to see one’s way in the key economic question without a study of which there was no understanding of the assessment of modern war or modern politics, namely: the economic essence of imperialism”. Lenin must have started his close study of the writings on imperialism in mid-1915, when he was in Berne, for his first indexes of literature, plans, extracts, notes and summaries date to that period. The preparatory materials for Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (Notebooks on Imperialism) make up about 800 printed pages. They contain extracts from 148 books (including 106 in German, 23 in French, 17 in English, and 2 translations into Russian), and 232 articles (of them 206 in German, 13 in French, and 3 in English) from 49 periodicals (34 German, 7 French and 8 English). In early January 1916, Lenin accepted an order for a book on imperialism from the legal Parus Publishers, founded in Petrograd in December 1915. Lenin wrote to Maxim Gorky on December 29, 1915 (January 11, 1916): “I am getting down to the writing of a pamphlet on imperialism” (see present edition, Vol. 35). In the early part of February 1916, he left Berne for Zurich, where he continued to collect and work on materials on imperialism. He worked at the Zurich Cantonal Library and ordered books from other towns. On June 19 (July 2), 1916 Lenin wrote to M. N. Pokrovsky, who was then living in France and editing for Parus a series of pamphlets about West-European countries during the First World War: “Today, I sent you a manuscript by registered mail” (see present edition, Vol. 35). The manuscript, which was mailed with the letter, did not reach Pokrovsky, and another copy had to be sent. Besides, the publishers suggested that the finished manuscript should be shortened from eighty to fifty pages, but Lenin objected because “it is absolutely impossible to cut it down once again and squeeze it into fifty pages” (ibid.). When the book reached the publishers, Menshevik elements among the management deleted from the book parts sharply criticising Kautsky and Martov, and made corrections in the text which not only distorted Lenin’s style but also his ideas. Thus, Lenin’s terms pererastaniye (capitalism growing into imperialism) was altered to prevrashcheniye (transformation); reaktstonny kharakter (reactionary nature of the theory of ultra-imperialism) to otstaly kharakter (backward character), etc. In mid-1917, the book was published under the title Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism(A Popular Outline) with a preface by Lenin, dated April 26, 1917.
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and…
Exocapitalism: economies with absolutely no limits
There is a touch of destiny with this one. We have real…
The end of development economics
Some decades ago, development economists saw their approach as being distinctive compared to mainstream economics in general and better grounded in the reality of actual economies. This column argues that two trends over the last decades – the significant improvement in the average income of what were called developing countries and the homogenisation of economics methodology across the board – mean that the distinction between development economics and economics in general is increasingly untenable and indeed unnecessary.
if there's one conclusion that the study of both labor history and imperialism converge on, it is that the richest people in the world are happy to burn money on control, power, impunity. and the "everything is about profit" version of anti-capitalism does not survive serious contact with either
Leonard Pierce
Adding to this thread: it’s a common mistake (I’ve made it myself, many times) to think of the motivations of the capitalist elites as essentially mercantilist: that is, that they are largely still motivated *entirely* by profit and loss, selling product, etc. This has not been true for a while.
