been shared out, the period of colonial monopoly opened and as a result the period of bitterest struggle for the partition and the re-partition of the world.
It is known in general how much monopolist capital has deepened all the inherent contradictions of capitalism. It is enough to mention the high cost of living and the yoke of the trusts. This deepening of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the definite victory of finance-capital.
Monopolies, oligarchy, the tendency towards domination instead of the tendency towards liberty, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by an extremely small minority of the richest or most powerful nations—all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which oblige us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the "Bondholding (Rentier) State," the usurer State, in which the bourgeoisie lives on the exportation of capital and on the "clipping of interest coupons." It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay excludes the possibility of the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. Separate branches of production, different strata of the bourgeoisie, and individual countries display with more or less strength in the imperialist period one or other of these tendencies. In a general way capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before, but this growth is becoming more and more irregular, and the irregularity is showing itself, in
