The Highest Stage of Capitalism?

Note: documents found at the Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Lenin and Hobson both argued imperialism was the natural (and, in Lenin's case, most extreme) manifestation of state-endorsed capitalism. Hobson, in Imperialism, endorses the view that imperialism exemplified the economic interest groups pressuring newly-unified states to expand their markets beyond Europe. Lenin followed Marx's analysis, contending that imperialism resulted from the general stagnation of capitalism as domestic industries coalesced into monopolies and profit margins began to decrease. To maintain profitability without increasing surplus value (the difference between a worker's wage and the value of his work), Marx argued capitalists would be forced to innovate or expand their markets. Thus, imperialism.

Others felt the process operated in reverse order. Joseph Schumpeter, in The Sociology of Imperialism, wrote that the imperialist spirit was a consequence of "The 'inner logic' of capitalism would have never evolved it. Its sources come from the policy of the princes and the customs of a pre-capitalism milieu... a martially-oriented class (i.e. the nobility) [that] maintained itself in the ruling position." The nationalist, statist desire for expansion and glory, in other words, created the opportunity for economic expansion.

Because the causes and effects of imperialism are so intermixed, determining them presents a 'chicken and the egg' problem. However, I am inclined to agree with Mr. Schumpeter. Imperialism was a state-sponsored enterprise, with the state acting in a power-maximizing fashion. Companies may have advocated and endorsed it, but it was fundamentally a political and cultural ideology.