Imperialism

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For the 1997 computer strategy game, see Imperialism (game).

Cecil Rhodes: Cape-Cairo railway project. Founder of the De Beers Mining Company, one of the first diamond companies, Rhodes was also the owner of the British South Africa Company, which carved out Rhodesia for itself. He wanted to "paint the map [British] red", and once famously declared: "all of these stars... these vast worlds that remain out of reach. If I could, I would annex other planets".^[1]

Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires. This is either through direct territorial; conquest or settlement, or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy. The term is used to describe the policy of a nation's dominance over distant lands, regardless of whether the nation considers itself part of the empire. The "Age of Imperialism" usually refers to the Old Imperialism period starting from 1860, when major European states started colonizing the other continents.The term 'Imperialism' was initially coined in the mid to late 1500s [1] to reflect the policies of countries such as Britain and France's expansion into Africa, and the Americas. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin argued that capitalism necessarily induced imperialism in order to find new markets and resources. This theory of necessary expansion of capitalism outside the boundaries of nation-states was also shared by Rosa Luxemburg^[2] and then by liberal philosopher Hannah Arendt^[3].

Since then, however, Lenin's theory has been extended by Marxist scholars to be a synonym of capitalistic international trade and banking [2].

Insofar as 'imperialism' in the non-Marxist sense might be used to refer to an intellectual position, it would imply the belief that the acquisition and maintenance of empires is a positive good, probably combined with an assumption of cultural or other such superiority inherent to imperial power (see The White Man's Burden).

Imperialism draws heavy criticism on the grounds that historically it has been frequently employed for economic exploitation in which the imperialist power makes use of other countries as sources of raw materials and cheap labor, shaping their economies to suit its own interests, and keeping their people in poverty. When imperialism is accompanied by overt military conquest of non-human rights abusing nations, it is also seen as a violation of freedom and human rights.

In recent years, there has also been a trend to view imperialism not at an economic or political level, but at a simply cultural level, particularly in regard to the widespread global influence of American culture (see "cultural imperialism"). Some dispute this extension of the concept, however, on the grounds that it is highly subjective to differentiate between mutual interaction and undue influence, and also that this extension is applied selectively.

[edit] Etymology

The Latin root is imperium In nineteenth century Britain the word "imperialism" came to be used in a polemical fashion to deride the foreign and domestic policies of the French emperor Napoleon III. Britons, in a longstanding tradition to distinguish themselves from the European mainland, did not consider their own policies to be "imperialist". They did speak of "colonization", the migration of people from British descent to other continents, giving rise to a “greater Britain” of English speaking peoples. Colonization was not yet associated with the rule of non-western peoples. India, which Britain acquired from the East Indian Company, was widely regarded as an exception. A very important exception, which nonetheless gave Britains cause for embarrassment. Benjamin Disraeli's move to make Queen Victoria "Empress of India" was even criticized as a dangerous act of (continental) “imperialism”. Critics feared this would have negative repercussions on British freedom and the rule of Parliament. When the subordination of non-Western peoples by European powers resumed with greater vigor in the late 19th century, the term became commonplace among liberal and marxist critics alike.

In the twentieth century the term "imperialism" also grew to apply to any historical or contemporary instance of a greater power acting, or being perceived to be acting, at the expense of a lesser power. Imperialism is therefore not only used to describe frank empire-building policies, such as those of the Romans, the Spanish or the British, but is also used controversially and/or disparagingly, for example by both sides in communist and anti-communist propaganda, or to describe actions of the United States since the American Presidency's acquisition of overseas territory during the Spanish-American War, or in relation to the United States' present-day position as the world's only "superpower."

[edit] Modern imperialism

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[edit] US imperialism

A contemporary debate surrounds the United States, American Presidency, and whether the power they exert upon much of the world and its policy amounts to imperialism — the U.S. is therefore sometimes referred to as the "American Empire." This is because, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States is now the world's dominant economic and military power, with the largest economy, second-largest nuclear stockpile, and huge population of 300 million. Furthermore, the U.S. has, many times over the past century, used both military intervention and economic or political influence to shape other countries, especially those within the Western Hemisphere but occasionally also those in the Eastern Hemisphere. Opinions vary greatly within the U.S.: some regard the active use of military force abroad as a part of the nation's responsibility or national interest, while others argue for non-interventionism. There are also many shades of opinion in between.

The United States has also only enjoyed its status as sole superpower for a relatively short period, without the Soviet Union as its dominant political, military, and ideological opponent. The Cold War battle for geopolitical supremacy tends to be cast in terms of 'freedom versus repression,' thereby de-emphasising the imperial aspects of both powers. Furthermore, as the term imperialism tends to have negative connotations of tyranny and repression, the 'subjects' of a supposed empire may be naturally disinclined to use it in any reference to themselves.

Beginning at the end of World War II, the U.S. largely took over from the United Kingdom certain roles of influence in the Middle East. Through assassinations and coups instigated and assisted by the United States, several Middle Eastern nations have felt the strong influence of Western societies. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel have all been directly or otherwise substantially influenced by U.S. policy.

[edit] Marxist theory of imperialism

Karl Marx never published a theory of imperialism, although he referred to colonialism in Das Kapital as an aspect of the prehistory of the capitalist mode of production. In various articles he also analysed British colonial rule in Ireland and India.

Marxists imperialism as Lenin defined it: "the highest stage of capitalism", specifically the era in which monopoly finance capital becomes dominant, forcing nations and corporations to compete amongst themselves increasingly for control over resources and markets all over the world. Such control may take the form of geopolitical machinations, military adventures, or financial maneuvers.

The essential feature of the Marxist theories of imperialism, or related theories such as dependency theory, is their focus on the economic relation between countries, rather than the formal political relationship. Imperialism thus consists not necessarily in the direct control of one country by another, but in the economic exploitation of one region by another, or of a group by another. This Marxist usage contrasts with many people's understanding of the connotation of the word 'imperialism', which they think of as relating to the era when countries directly controlled vast empires, rather than the economic domination that some parts of the world have over others today - this popular view is a conflation of imperialism with colonialism, the establishment of overseas colonies.

As noted above, the Marxist theory of imperialism is not founded on the works of Karl Marx, but on those of Vladimir Lenin. Lenin held that imperialism was a stage of capitalist development signalled by the dominance of monopolies and of finance, or banking, capital. Following Marx's value theory, Lenin saw monopoly capital as plagued by the law of the tendency of profit to fall, as the ratio of constant capital to variable capital increases. In Marx's theory only living labor or variable capital creates profit in the form of surplus-value. As the ratio of surplus value to the sum of constant and variable capital fals, so does the rate of profit on invested capital. Lenin stated that imperialism allows the capitalists from developed (rich) countries to extract a superprofit from the working class of undeveloped (poor) countries. In this way capitalists could circumvent the tendency of profit rates to fall by using more labor-intensive production in colonial, or zones controlled by imperialism. These were "super-profits" in that these profit rates exceeded the average rates possible in the imperialist centers. The majority of this superprofit is kept by the capitalists themselves, but some of it is shared with the working class of the developed countries (in the form of higher standards of living, cheaper consumer goods, etc.), in order to placate that working class and avoid revolution at home.

The Soviet Union, which claimed to follow Leninism, proclaimed itself the foremost enemy of imperialism and supported many independence movements throughout the Third World. However, at the same time, it asserted its dominance over the countries of Eastern Europe. This has led many to accuse the Soviet Union of hypocrisy, and it is often used as an argument for the idea that the Soviet Union did not, in fact, follow Leninist principles. Some Marxists, both Maoists and some on the left of the Trotskyist tradition, most notably Tony Cliff, claim that the Soviet Union was imperialist (the Maoists claiming this happened after Kruschev's seisure of power in 1956, the Cliffites claiming it happened already in the 1920s with Stalin).

New developments in the Marxist study of imperialism stem from the ground-breaking study The Age of Imperialism, written by Harry Magdoff in 1969. Globalization is generally viewed as the latest incarnation of imperialism among Marxists.

[edit] References

1. ^ S. Gertrude Millin, Rhodes, London, 1933, p.138
2. ^ See The Accumulation of Capital, 1913.
3. ^ See Hannah Arendt, op.cit.

[edit] See also

• New Imperialism
• Theories of New Imperialism
• Ultra-imperialism
• Colonialism

[edit] External links

• The Paradox of Imperialism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. November 2006.