with it, thus giving rise to a number of very acute and very great contradictions, antagonisms and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a more highly developed order.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, it would be defined as the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include the essential feature; for, on the one hand, finance-capital is the banking capital of the few biggest monopolist banks, fused with the capital of the monopolist groups of manufacturers; and, on the other, the division of the world is a transition from a colonial policy, ceaselessly extended without encountering opposition in regions not as yet appropriated by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolised territorial possession—the sharing out of the world being completed.
But very brief definitions, although convenient because they summarise the principal data, are nevertheless insufficient if the important features of the phenomenon defined are to be characterised. And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions, which can never include all the manifestations of a phenomenon in its process of development, we must give a definition of imperialism embracing its five essential features:
(1) The concentration of production and capital, developed so highly that it creates monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
(2) The fusion of banking capital with industrial capital and the creation, on the basis of this financial capital, of a financial oligarchy.
(3) The export of capital, which has become
