Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
In "Imperialism: A Study" (1902), John A. Hobson developed a highly influential interpretation of imperialism that expanded on his belief that free enterprise capitalism had a negative impact on the majority of the population. In "Imperialism" he argued that the financing of overseas empires drained money that was needed at home. It was invested abroad because of lower wages paid to the workers overseas made for higher profits and higher rates of return, compared to domestic wages. So although domestic wages remained higher, they did not grow nearly as fast as they might have otherwise. Exporting capital, he concluded, put a lid on the growth of domestic wages in the domestic standard of living. By the 1970s, historians such as David K. Fieldhouse and Oron Hale could argue that "the Hobsonian foundation has been almost completely demolished." The British experience failed to support it. However, European Socialists picked up Hobson's ideas and made it into their own theory of imperialism, most notably in Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916). Lenin portrayed Imperialism as the closure of the world market and the end of capitalist free-competition that arose from the need for capitalist economies to constantly expand investment, material resources and manpower in such a way that necessitated colonial expansion. Later Marxist theoreticians echo this conception of imperialism as a structural feature of capitalism, which explained the World War as the battle between imperialists for control of external markets. Lenin's treatise became a standard textbook that flourished until the collapse of communism in 1989–91.