CHAPTER IX.
The Critique of Imperialism
We understand the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, to mean the attitude towards imperialist policy of the different classes of society taken as part of their general outlook.
The enormous dimensions of finance-capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extremely extensive network of close ties and relationships which involves not only the small and medium capitalists, but also even the very small; this, on the one hand, and on the other the bitter struggle against other national State groups of financiers for the partition of the world and the right to rule over other countries—these two factors taken together cause the complete conversion of all the possessing classes to the side of imperialism. The signs of the times are a "general" enthusiasm regarding its prospects, a passionate defence of imperialism, and every possible camouflage of its real nature. The imperialist outlook also penetrates the working class. There is no Chinese wall between it and the other classes. And the leaders of the so-called "Social-Democratic" Party of Germany are to-day justly called Social-Imperialists; that is, Socialists in words and Imperialists in deeds. But as early as 1902, Hobson noted the existence of "Fabian Imperialists" belonging to the opportunist Fabian Society.
The bourgeois scholars and publicists generally undertake the defence of imperialism only in a
