I understand how the free trade policies lead to monopoly, and I understand how financial monopolies take over industrial monopolies. But I don't really get the jump from monopolies to imperialism.
I understand how the free trade policies lead to monopoly, and I understand how financial monopolies take over industrial monopolies. But I don't really get the jump from monopolies to imperialism.
The Short answer: the bourgeois are parasitic sociopaths who do not like having their ambitions limited. If Capital rose at the regional level they would form societies to pressure their regional society at the political/ideological and cultural level to demand expansion to the national level. (buy politicians/buy up media and create cultural content displaying a militaristic outlook celebrating conquest or you know....Lightbearers of Democracy)
Once at the national level they would demand to be able to expand at the international level.
If they were absolutely restricted by expansion you would see Communist revolution break out. Russia for instance had a very weak bourgeois in 1917 and most of the industries in Russia were already captured by British and French capitalists. They could not expand. The Russian people therefore had the only option of to sink further into ruin or take a new weapon at the bourgeoisie
The long answer: Imperialism is not just a policy nor economics nor just politics. It is an entire encompassing system including economics, politics, ideology and culture.
The imperialists believe in a surplus reserve army of labour that is increasingly threatened with homelessness and pauperism. These parasites believe in a society of hierarchy where they are at the top and the vast mass of humanity scrabble in the dirt. Marx explains better:
Marx, Capital, The General Law Of Capital Accumulation, P.798-799
Except for by the time Imperialism came on the scene the bourgeoisie were no longer content with labourers being "mutilated into an appendage of a machine" they were forcing them into trenches to fight other labourers and die by the millions - 125 million dead by counting just ww1 and 2 alone.
Stalin talked about how with the success of the October revolution it smashed part of the ideology in mens minds regarding race superiority which allowed genocides and atrocities that occurred in the colonies to continue
-J V Stalin, The International Character Of the October Revolution, 1927
never stop posting (please)
Thanks com o7