Decay of Imperialism

When capitalism developed to the stage of imperialism, it was gradually declining and decadent.

Lenin argued that the monopoly of financial capital led to the stagnation of production and technology, resulting in the corruption of financial capital. First of all, financial monopoly capital can obtain monopoly profits by setting monopoly prices by taking advantage of its monopoly position in production and sales. In this way, within the scope of prescribed (even temporarily) monopoly prices, technological progress is also the motivation for all other progress, and the motivation for advancement disappears to a certain extent. Secondly, in economy, it is possible to artificially hinder technological progress and the adoption of scientific and technological achievements. On the one hand, the adoption of new technology will accelerate the renewal of fixed capital, resulting in invisible loss of capital and devaluation of the original capital; on the other hand, new technology will increase labor productivity, increase production on a large scale, aggravate the problem of capitalist overproduction, increase difficulties in the sales of commodities, and not conducive to maintain monopoly prices. The monopoly capitalist may also rely on his huge economic strength to take various measures to prevent the application of new technology. Buying an invention patent and putting it on the shelf is a form of preventing the application of new technology. “For instance, in America, a certain Owens invented a machine which revolutionised the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle-manufacturing cartel purchased Owens’s patent, but pigeon-holed it, refrained from utilising it.” Of course, this is a typical example. Monopoly can not eliminate competition permanently and completely, and improved methods can also reduce production costs and increase profits. Therefore, it is not the only and common phenomenon of capitalism to block the application of new technology by means of bribe. “But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand.” Whether it hinders or adopts new technologies depends on the demand of financial capital for profits. In addition, monopoly, which grows from free competition, does not and cannot eliminate competition. Monopoly tends to stagnate and decay, but competition promotes the development of production. The coexistence of monopoly and competition is the institutional reason for the coexistence of two trends in the era of financial capital. Lenin said: “It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (Britain).”