Cultural Marxist theology began with Hegel in the mid 19th century. His student Marx transformed Hegel's irrelevant 'dialectics' into a quack-scientific theory replete with mendacity, irrationality and dysfunctional psycho-pathology. Lenin, the muddled thinker and thug, took Marxian theology and gave it 'new life'; imploring rather pathetically, that capitalism would find its own death, in the post-imperial era. The microbiological destruction emanating from these three 'intellectuals', still applauded by many in academia and the media as colossi of 'rational thought'; have found their way into the cultural drinking water. It is imbibed by all. In our own times, one of the most virulent of the social-intellectual diseases which is deforming our collective psyche – cultural Marxism – can trace its lineage to these 'intellectuals' amongst many other 'progressive' intellects.

Like Marx, Lenin never worked. Having never built, created, deployed, managed, or even labored, Lenin pronounced himself an expert on all affairs political-economic. This absurdity should not be lost on the reader, who manfully tries to push himself through Lenin's book 'Imperialism'. It is a screed as malformed in the political-economic sense as Mein Kampf; or as divorced from true ethical observations as the Koran. Lenin reminds me of the plumber, who had never been a lawyer, who magisterially decides that he is the most well-equipped of people to pass commentary on the complex issues residing in the law. The plumber would simply plumb the depths of incompetence when addressing his untutored mind upon legal issues. So too is Lenin equally at sea when he rehashes tired, failed, and resoundingly inane Marxist theory to confidently predict the end of capitalism; due to the appearance of 'imperialism'.

The main issue with Lenin's work is not that it is a jumble-mash of nonsense. The main concern is that Lenin's core theses are assiduoulsy followed and believe in today, by a large cadre of those elitists who populate the media, academia and government. Lenin believed that capitalism was a failure because the concentration of capital created the need for an imperialist or expansionist policy. Hence in this immature view, all wars, diplomatic imbroglio's, foreign trade, investments and technological innovation was due to this animating rubric of the capitalist 'system'. For Lenin capitalism ineluctably leads to imperialism, slavery of the non-capitalist nations, and utlimately its own demise, as the 'socialisation of production' to use Lenin's words, simply ran out of foreign markets to 'conquer' and control. At this point the system would implode. 

Lenin summarizes his inaninty and the five 'essential features' of his theory on page 89: 

1)The concentration of production and capital developed to reach a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
2)The merging of bank capital with industrial capital.....
3)The export of capital...as distinguished from the export of commodities.
4)The formation of international capitalistic monopolies which share the world amongst themselves.
5)The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capital powers is completed.

So how many of the above points are still taught today? I would hazard most if not all of them. Yet not a single one of them is rooted in reality, data or in how political-economies actually work. For examples monopolies come in both 'natural' and 'unnatural' forms. The latter are produced by the state for the benefit of its revenue base and to satisfy the political-economic ambitions of the elite who manage the state and its monopolies. Thus contrary to Marxist-Leninist philosophy, politics trumps economics. Natural monopolies including for example Microsoft, will over time experience competition as new and more creative technologies or practices assail the high rent-making actor who for a period of time, enjoys a natural form of monopoly in which, for sundry reasons, its good or service, is accepted as a 'standard'. This natural monopoly is not even discussed by Lenin. 

Lenin sources his data from German and English Marxists to 'prove' that Western banks in 1910 were in a position of monopoly or dominance for instance. But he never goes back in time and revisits the assumption. In 1670, 1770, 1870 and even 1900, the banking system was very different than that of 1910. Simple research would have revealed a dynamic, changeable, and quite innovative sector, in which actors, players and government interest were extraordinarily mutable over both time and place. Lenin's claim that banks were somehow beyond evolutionary logic, would be betrayed by events post 1910. The 1920s, the Second World War, the Cold War and the rise of industrializing states has certainly transformed the banking and finance sector beyond even the most optimistic and utopian claims of someone back in 1910. Even by 1950 almost all of the major bank players of 1910 were either dissolved, merged into a new firm, or forced into niche markets with very different business models. By 2000 the financial industry had further metamorphosized both domestically and internationally, as well as vertically and horizontally, belying Lenin's facile claims that powerful banks would achieve a homostasis state; and would never transmogrify, fail, go bankrupt, or be forced to change as conditions in the market were transformed. Citibank's recent bankruptcy and bail out simply illustrates the utter futility of Lenin's claims. 

Neither are Lenin's other claims centered on reality. 'Monopolies' do not wage war to 'acquire commodities'. The only instance of trading monopolies going to war to protect their monopolies are the Dutch East Indies corporation during the 17th century; and the British East Indies company during the 18th. These are anomalies and exceptions. Even with these two examples both monopolies were protected by the Dutch and English states; and both were in essence tools of foreign policy. They were also early modern states – not capitalist states. English industrial manufacture would not arrive until the late 18th century, once capital had accumulated and debt instruments were formed which could be loaned to industry against collateral or revenue receipts. Stock markets would also be decisive, first formed in 1690 in Amsterdam, and a few years later in London. Trade expansion is complex and it is simply untrue to ascribe to trade the rudiments of 'war' or 'plunder'. For example by 1850 the English balance of trade with India was negative! The same was true of the Dutch incursion into Indonesia by 1880.  The massive investments for instance, by the British in India in areas like railways, schools, hospitals, roads, and urban development; and the creation by English settlers of a vibrant production and market for Indian cotton, makes a mockery out of the claim that the English were in India 'for the money'. There are sundry reasons why the Dutch and English political elite viewed the control of the spice and commodity trade in both Indonesia and in India, as necessary for national goals and ambitions, including geo-political competition.  Clearly even in these anamolous cases, we can see that politics trumped economics, negating Lenin's thesis.

In any event Lenin's 'analysis' is based on 4 or 5 flawed sources. He uses the magazine Die Bank, a Marxist reactionary paper which purported to highlight the domination of the German economy by its banking 'cartel'. A few other German Marxists such as Hilferding, are prolific as source material for his theories. Their data is either mendacious, apocryphal, or not regressed and analyzed properly. It is simply unreliable. Any cursory analysis of the data and claims made using such detail would immediate raise flaws and questions. Lenin also approvingly quotes from the English Marxist Hobson who wrote in 1902 a screed against English expansionism, titled 'Imperialism'. In fact it is clear that Hobson, the hack who hated capitalism, is a prime inspiration for Lenin: 

“There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence.” 

This is quintessential Neo-Marxist theology. An elite raises up the capital system. They gorge themselves into obesity, on 'rents'. Trade is but a tool used by the elite to exploit 'natives'. Useless commercial and consumer products are produced by the 'monopolies' nestled tighly into the bosom of the elitist-run state. The 'opium' of the masses turns from religion to consumables. This is utter 'intellectualized' bunk. But again the main point is this – how many students, devotees of the main stream media, and those in our elite believe all or part of the above to be true ? The number would no doubt be shockingly high.

For Lenin rational logic and factual analysis – like it was for Hegel and Marx – could simply be overwhelmed by bafflegab and nonsense. Witness his description of imperialism:

“Imperialism, of the domination of the finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy...”

You can't have a banking or a financial sector unless you have a manufacturing, technological, and value-added complex. You also don't have a robust banking sector unless there are varied and widespread productive entities and individuals of all shapes and sizes creating, building and managing an astonishing array of products and services both locally and internationally. Banking in other words, is like any other industry. There will be different markets serviced by different financial products. There is no 'conspiracy' by big banks to destroy either their markets nor their competitors. There is likewise little reality in the claim that large banks instigate wars, 'colonial adventures', or engage in the enslavement of 'natives' in other lands.

But these and other fantasies not only populate Lenin's absurd work; they also disfigure and distort our own culture today.