to be found in all domains of nature and society. Finance-capital is such a great, it may be said such a decisive force in all economic and international relations, that it is capable of subordinating itself, and actually does subordinate itself even to States enjoying complete political independence. We shall shortly see examples of this. But naturally it finds the greatest "convenience" and draws the biggest profits from a subordination involving the loss of the political independence of the countries and peoples in question.
In this connection the semi-colonised countries offer us a typical example of the middle course. It is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries was bound to become particularly bitter during the period of finance-capital, the rest of the world being already shared out.
There was a colonial policy and an imperialism before the modern phase of capitalism, and even before capitalism. Rome, founded on slavery, carried out a colonial policy and gave effect to imperialism. But "general" reasonings on imperialism, which forget or tone down the fundamental difference of social-economic systems, infallibly degenerate into absolutely empty banalities, or into boasting, such as the comparison of the grandeur of Rome and the grandeur of Britain.69
Even the colonial policy of capitalism in its previous phases is essentially different from that of finance-capital.
The principal characteristic of modern capitalism is the domination of monopolist alliances of the biggest capitalists. These monopolies are the most solid when all the sources of raw materials are controlled by the one group. And we have
