Information about Imperialism

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

Imperialism is the forceful extension of a nation's authority by territorial conquest establishing economic and political domination of other nations that are not its own colonies.

Overview

Imperialism is the domination of one people by another people. Imperialism is found in the ancient histories of Rome, Greece, the Persian Empire, China, the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, India, Egypt, Africa, the Aztec empire, and many other areas. Although the practice has existed for thousands of years, the term "Age of Imperialism" refers to the Scramble for Africa. The term 'Imperialism' was coined in the sixteenth century, ^[2] reflecting the imperial policies of Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands into Africa, and the Americas.

Currently, "imperialism" applies to any instance of a greater power acting or being perceived to act at the expense of a lesser power. Including 'perception' in the definition makes it circular, solipsistic, and subjective. 'Imperialism' not only describes colonial, territorial policies, but also describes economic dominance and influence.

European dominance of the non-west through economic exploitation and political rule, (as distinct from the word colonialism, which usually implied establishment of settler colonies often with slavery as the labor system), the word was coined in the mid nineteenth century. The Making of the WestPeoples and Cultures

Lenin's theory of Imperialism

European intellectuals first developed formal theories of imperialism. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), V.I. Lenin said capitalism necessarily induced monopoly capitalism as imperialism to find new business and resources, representing the last and highest stage of capitalism.^[3] The necessary expansion of capitalism beyond the boundaries of nation-states — a foundation of Leninism — was shared by Rosa Luxemburg (The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism^[4]) and liberal philosopher Hannah Arendt.^[5] Since then, Marxist scholars extended Lenin's theory to be synonymous with capitalist international trade and banking.^[6]

Although Karl Marx did not publish a theory of imperialism, he identified colonialism (cf. Das Kapital) as an aspect of the prehistory of the capitalist mode of production. He analysed British colonial rule in Ireland and India; it was good for India, being the progressive influence that shook it out from centuries-long stagnation and lethargy, thus ending some of the most brutal cultural practices in world history. Lenin's definition: "the highest stage of capitalism" addressed the time when monopoly finance capital was dominant, forcing nations and private corporations to compete to control the world's natural resources and markets.

Marxist imperialism theory, and the related dependency theory, emphasise the economic relationships among countries (and within countries), rather than formal political and military relationships. Thus, imperialism is not necessarily direct formal control of one country by another, but the economic exploitation of one by another. This Marxism contrasts with the popular conception of imperialism, as directly-controlled colonial and neocolonial empires.

Per Lenin, Imperialism is Capitalism, with five simultaneous features:

(1) Concentration of production and capital led to the creation of national and multinational monopolies — not as in liberal economics, but as de facto power over their markets — while "free competition" remains the domain of local and niche markets:

Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system. (Ch. VII)

[Following Marx's value theory, Lenin saw monopoly capitalism limited by the law of falling profit, as the ratio of constant capital to variable capital increased. Per Marx, only living labour (variable capital) creates profit in the form of surplus-value. As the ratio of surplus value to the sum of constant and variable capital falls, so does the rate of profit on invested capital.]

(2) Finance capital replaces industrial capital (the dominant capital), (reiterating Rudolf Hilferding's point in Finance Capital), as industrial capitalists rely more upon bank-generated finance capital.

(3) Finance capital exportation replaces the exportation of goods (though they continue in production);

(4) The economic division of the world, by multi-national enterprises via international cartels; and

(5) The political division of the world by the great powers, wherein exporting finance capital to their colonies allows their exploitation for resources and continued investment. This superexploitation of poor countries allows the capitalist industrial nations to keep some of their own workers content with slightly higher living standards. (cf. labor aristocracy; globalization)

Claiming to be Leninist, the U.S.S.R. proclaimed itself foremost enemy of imperialism, supporting armed, national independence movements in the Third World while simultaneously dominating Eastern Europe. Marxists and Maoists to the left of Trotsky, such as Tony Cliff, claim the Soviet Union was imperialist. Maoists claim it occurred after Khrushchev's ascension in 1956; Cliff says it occurred under Stalin in the 1940s. Harry Magdoff's Age of Imperialism (1954) discusses Marxism and imperialism. Currently, Marxists view globalization as imperialism's latest incarnation.

See also

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

Further reading

• Robert Bickers/Christian Henriot (Hg.): New frontiers : imperialism's new communities in East Asia, 1842-1953, Manchester [u.a.] : Manchester University Press 2000, ISBN 0-7190-5604-7
• Empire, by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, Harvard University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-674-00671-2

References

External links

• The Paradox of Imperialism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. November 2006.
• Imperialism Quotations
• State, Imperialism and Capitalism by Joseph Schumpeter
• Economic Imperialism by A.J.P.Taylor
• Imperialism Entry in the Columbia Encyclopedia (Bartleby)