Eduardo Galeano: More than half a century after (V. I.) Lenin wrote his book (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) monopoly capitalism has shown that it has more than the proverbial nine lives; and imperialism, its logical extension, has survived with unsuspected vigor, centered now around a single great power. But the instruments of this universal system of exploitation are no longer simply the ones Lenin described. Imperialism has evolved and has become more effective, both in robbing as well as in killing. It has polished its methods, extended into new areas, and constructed new models of domination that were unknown on the eve of the Russian Revolution. In this era of electronic computers, the "multinational" corporations do not count their profits on their fingers, to put it mildly The new type of imperialism does not make its colonies more prosperous, even though it enriches its "enclaves"; it does not alleviate social tensions, but on the contrary sharpens them; it extends poverty and concentrates wealth; it takes over the internal market and key parts of the productive apparatus; it appropriates progress for itself, determines its direction, and fixes its limits; it absorbs credit and directs foreign trade as it pleases; it does not provide capital for development but instead removes it; it encourages waste by sending the greatest part of the economic surplus abroad; it denationalizes our industry and also the profits that our industry produces. Today in Latin America the system has our veins open as it did in those distant times when our blood first served the needs of primary accumulation for European capitalist development. wordsmith.social/protestation/…