tation of the earth by finance-capital internationally united."
We shall have to dwell on this "theory of ultra-imperialism" to show how definitely and utterly it breaks with Marxism. According to the plan of the present essay, let us consult in this matter the exact economic data relating to it. Is "ultra-imperialism" possible "from the purely economic point of view"?
If the "purely economic point of view" means pure abstraction, all that can be said resolves itself into the following proposition: the evolution of capitalism tends to monopolies, hence it tends to a united world monopoly, to a universal trust. This is undeniable, but it is also completely devoid of meaning.
If, on the other hand, we are discussing the "purely economic" conditions of the period of finance-capital, considered as an actual historical period at the beginning of the 20th century, then lifeless abstractions about imperialism are best refuted by the concrete economic realities of the present world situation. (Kautsky's line of argument on "ultra-imperialism," encourages, amongst other things, that profoundly mistaken idea, which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists of imperialism, that the domination of finance-capital weakens the inequalities and contradictions of world economy, whereas in reality it strengthens them.)
R. Calwer attempted in his little book, An Introduction to World Economics,78 to summarise the main purely economic data required to understand, in a concrete way, the internal relations of world economy at the end of the 19th and beginning
