Capitalism both combines nations and drives them asunder. It knits together the peoples of earth by the railroad, the steamboat, the rapid mail, the newspaper. It creates the material basis for the brotherhood of all nations but the methods of its expansion brutally thwart that hope. It advances into the backward lands of earth by plunder and annexation. The “civilized” people rob the “uncivilized” ones and finally war among themselves for the right to rob. Imperialism steadily increases both the economic unity of the earth, and the national hates which tear that unity asunder.

This is so much more relevant today with the Internet and much easier travelling internationally. Distances between all of us have decreased by an insane amount, and have almost become zero in the social sense, yet you still see that every space enabling this international communication is completely filled with racism and fascism. The same people manufacturing hatred back then for capitalist profits are the same ones reviving it today with nonsense like “white genocide” and pogroms against refugees. It’s one of the clearest dialectical relationships to think of, the contradiction between the friendship of the people of the world and the hatred between them, is capitalism’s need for exploitation to sustain itself. Without putting an end to capitalism, there can never be real unity.