I would love to turn the tables and ask of the never-ending-period-of-imperialism school how they can explain Lenin's imperialism without imperial contest, without division and redivision as state policy, with finance capital well and truly risen above state borders and monopolies very clearly existing as international entities. All of these things are intimated by Lenin as the end result of Imperialism if proletarian revolution had not intervened (as it has not on the scale necessary to derail the bourgeoisie).
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CB: Truly today is a modified imperialism. Several of the elements of Lenin's definition persist, and several have changed, turned into their opposite even. There is still monopoly capital, state-monopoly capital, finance capital, financial oligarchy, even in exponentially expanded forms. Export of capital is still a mark of an imperialist country.Lenin noted the rise of cartels and trusts. Today, as is explained on these economic lists, there are not exactly cartels and trusts. But what there are can certainly be well understood as super cartels and trusts. There are Funds galore, national and international. Anyway, it is not a part of Lenin's definition of imperialism that monopolies remain within national boundaries. On the contrary, much of Lenin's thesis is on the transnationalization of monopolies. "Imperialism" is an economic category. So, today's "globalization" is an affirmation of the general direction of Lenin's analysis, not a deviation from it. Lenin's is a th! eory of the internationalization of capital, imperialism.
On the other hand, because of the Cold War imperialist military unity especially, the interimperialist military rivalry that gave rise to WWI and main impetus to WWII has drastically changed. Today we have potentially a qualitatively new type of World War initiated by Bush.