Why Capitalism is Ending

 

 

I've asserted before that Lenin's theory of imperialism is outdated (there were also problems with it even in his own time, but that's a topic for another time).  I was once asked (online), what has really changed between Lenin's time, and our own?  Of course, there are many answers to this question.  But perhaps the most important shift is the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons, which utterly changed the game board of geopolitics, in multiple ways.  As Marx once said, "The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist."  But not only did nuclear weaponry change the world directly, but also indirectly by solidifying American hegemony, allowing for the creation of an international culture.

Understanding this historical shift allows us to break down our analysis in a more granular way.  A regime that was established entirely before the development of nuclear weaponry (like the USSR, whose revolution began in 1917 and which was fully established in 1922) is fundamentally different from a regime like the People's Republic of China.  The Chinese revolution began in 1912.  Then began a protracted struggle which spanned two world wars.  In 1945, nuclear weapons were developed first in the United States.  On August 29th, 1949, the USSR successfully tested their first nuclear weapon, and like clockwork, the People's Republic of China was announced 33 days later, on October 1st.  This is, in turn, a different kind of regime from one like the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was established on September 2nd, 1945, two months after the development of nuclear weaponry in the United States, yet crucially several years before the USSR had developed its own nuclear capability.  And this kind of regime is, in turn, completely different from those of, for instance, the Republic of Cuba, established in 1965, or the Lao People's Democratic Republic, established in 1975.