Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

44V. I. LENINThe American trusts are the supreme expression of theeconomics of imperialism or monopoly capitalism. They donot confine themselves to economic means of eliminatingrivals, but constantly resort to political, even criminal,methods. It would be the greatest mistake, however, tobelieve that the trusts cannot establish their monopoly bypurely economic methods. Reality provides ample proofthat this is “achievable”: the trusts undermine their rivals’credit through the banks (the owners of the trusts becomethe owners of the banks: buying up shares); their supplyof materials (the owners of the trusts become the owners ofthe railways: buying up shares); for a certain time the trustssell below cost, spending millions on this in order to ruin acompetitor and then buy up his enterprises, his sources ofraw materials (mines, land, etc.).There you have a purely economic analysis of the powerof the trusts and their expansion. There you have the purelyeconomic path to expansion: buying up mills and factories,sources of raw materials.Big finance capital of one country can always buy up competitorsin another, politically independent country andconstantly does so. Economically, this is fully achievable.Economic “annexation” is fully “achievable” without politicalannexation and is widely practised. In the literatureon imperialism you will constantly come across indicationsthat Argentina, for example, is in reality a “tradecolony” of Britain, or that Portugal is in reality a “vassal”of Britain, etc. And that is actually so: economic dependenceupon British banks, indebtedness to Britain, British acquisitionof their railways, mines, land, etc., enable Britain to“annex” these countries economically without violating theirpolitical independence.National self-determination means political independence.Imperialism seeks to violate such independence becausepolitical annexation often makes economic annexation easier,cheaper (easier to bribe officials, secure concessions, putthrough advantageous legislation, etc.), more convenient,less troublesome—just as imperialism seeks to replace democracygenerally by oligarchy. But to speak of the economic“unachievability” of self-determination under imperialismis sheer nonsense.