Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

By: Vladimir Ilyich

Narrated by: Yosef Kent

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin's modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867).

Public Domain (P)2020 Author's Republic

It was like a crash course & expansion on Capital.

The statistics are dry, but it's just plain good theory. I definitely recommend reading it.

Still Relevant Classic with Lots of Dated Data

This is a classic on the way capital tends to become concentrated in the hands of monopolies and the finance industry, and how it seeks new investment potential in imperial holdings. Lenin is a surprisingly responsible scholar, who relies heavily on data proving his point. Unfortunately, it is dated and not well presented, and it is hard to follow on an audiobook. The reader also sounds like an American salesman, especially on faster speeds, which makes for an incongruous listen. All in all, one might have imagined a more elegant argument, but it is interesting how relevant his points still are today.

Curious

The book was decent. The reader makes an interesting mistake in the recording. Not really sure how that was missed. Their voice pitch made it hard to listen to at points because they would change octaves.

VL wrote this well. However, there was immediate resolutions to the points he made in this book. Antitrust laws and their evolution have completely made this book outdated to some extent. one could argue modern day America has returned to a trust or monopolized system, but not nearly a return to the era of the early 1900s. Perhaps the only market this represents is the Korean economy with Chaebols. Even then, Korea has more small businesses than most countries in the world.

This narrator may literally be a bot.

This narrator may just be a bot. I got five minutes in and now I'm looking up how to get a refund.