Reply #13: the Romans just stole it from the Greeks and Persians

[foo_bar]

I think Chavez was referring to Lenin's "monopoly stage of capitalism", kind of a cyclical dealio where Standard Oil takes over and instigates wars through Hearst newspapers. Blair is just the imperialist lap dog, not the evil mustache-twirling tycoon himself.

"If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist combines of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolistic possession of the territory of the world which has been completely divided up." http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1916lenin-imperialism.html