Theories of imperialism

Marx's writings on colonial societies are often considered by modern Marxists to contain contradictions or incorrect predictions, even if most agree he laid the foundation for later understandings of imperialism, dependency, super-exploitation and unequal exchange.

Historians Peter Duignan and Lewis H. Gann argue that Hobson had an enormous influence in the early 20th century among people from all over the world: Hobson's ideas were not entirely original; however his hatred of moneyed men and monopolies, his loathing of secret compacts and public bluster, fused all existing indictments of imperialism into one coherent system....His ideas influenced German nationalist opponents of the British Empire as well as French Anglophobes and Marxists; they colored the thoughts of American liberals and isolationist critics of colonialism.

Hobson helped make the British averse to the exercise of colonial rule; he provided indigenous nationalists in Asia and Africa with the ammunition to resist rule from EuropeBy 1911, Hobson had largely reversed his position on imperialism, as he was convinced by arguments from his fellow radical liberals Joseph Schumpeter, Thorstein Veblen, and Norman Angell, who argued that imperialism itself was mutually beneficial for all societies involved, provided it was not perpetrated by a power with a fundamentally aristocratic, militaristic nature.

[28] This process is summarized by Hilferding as follows: The policy of finance capital has three objectives: (1) to establish the largest possible economic territory; (2) to close this territory to foreign competition by a wall of protective tariffs, and consequently (3) to reserve it as an area of exploitation for the national monopolistic combines.To Hilferding, monopolies exploited all consumers within their protected areas, not just colonial subjects, however he did believe that "[v]iolent methods are of the essence of colonial policy, without which it would lose its capitalist rationale.

[45][46] In 1914 Karl Kautsky expressed a similar idea, coining the term ultra-imperialism, or a stage of peaceful cooperation between imperialist powers, where countries would forego arms races and limit competition.

Some, such as Anthony Brewer, have argued that Imperialism is a "popular outline" which has been unfairly treated as a "sacred text", and that many arguments (such as Lenin's contention that industry requires capital export to survive) are not as well developed as in his contemporaries’ work.

In addition to this, capital exports into the less concretely divided areas of the world have increased, and monopoly companies seek protection from their parent states in order to secure these foreign investments.

[70][71][72][73] Kwame Nkrumah, former president of Ghana (1960–66), coined the term Neocolonialism, which appeared in the 1963 preamble of the Organisation of African Unity Charter, and was the title of his 1965 book Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism.

In addition to this transfer of surplus, Frank noted that satellite economies become "distorted" over time, developing a low-waged, primary goods-producing industrial sector with few available jobs, leaving much of the country reliant on pre-industrial production.

Newton believed that imperialism had developed into a new stage known as "reactionary intercommunalism," characterized by the rise of a small "ruling circle" within the United States which had gained a monopoly on advanced technology and the education necessary to use it.

[83] Newton was not widely recognized as a scholar in his own time,[84][85][86] however intercommunalism gained some influence in the worldwide Panther movement,[87][88] and was cited as a precursor to Hardt and Negri's theory of empire.

Inspired by Lenin, Baran, Amin, Fanon, Nkrumah and C. L. R. James, Rodney put forward a unique theory of “capitalist imperialism” that would gain some influence via his teaching position at the University of Dar es Salaam, and through his books.

Instead, from the 16th century onwards a world-system formed through market exchange had developed, displacing the "minisystems" (small, local economies) and "world-empires" (systems based on tribute to a central authority) that had existed until that point.

[93][95] Another key aspect of world-systems theory is the idea of world hegemons, or countries which gain a "rare and unstable" monopoly over the interstate system by combining an agro-industrial, commercial, and financial edge over their rivals.

True hegemonies tend to be marked by free-trade, and political and economic liberalism, and their rise and decline can be explained through Kondratiev waves, which also correlate to periods of expansion and stagnation in the world system.

Other world-systems theorists include Oliver Cox, Giovanni Arrighi, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Beverly Silver, Volker Bornschier, Janet Abu Lughod, Thomas D. Hall, Kunibert Raffer, Theotonio dos Santos, Dale Tomich, Jason W. Moore and others.

Accumulation within the center tends to be "autocentric," or governed by its own internal dynamic as dictated by local conditions, prices, and effective demand, in a manner relatively unchanged since it was first described by Marx.

Drawing on an eclectic set of inspirations including Newton, Polybius, Michel Foucault,[101] Gilles Deleuze and Baruch Spinoza, they propose that the modern structure of imperialism described by Lenin has given way to a postmodern Empire constructed among the ruling powers of the world.

[104] Hardt and Negri's work gained significant attention in the wake of the September 11 attacks, as well as in the context of the anti-globalization movement, which took on a similarly nebulous character to the pair's proposed multitude.

Vogler begins by outlining his theory's assumptions and describes how psychological processes of social comparison and the importance of political prestige partly established the desire of rulers to continuously expand their territory and economic base.

However, the fragmented character of European geography and climate in combination with endogenous processes of great power balancing prevented a single state from permanently gaining a dominant status.

Therefore, beginning with the development of long-distance naval technology in the fifteenth century, imperial expansion and exploitation in other world regions, which typically sparked less effective military resistance, became an attractive alternative form of prestige gain for rulers.

[112] Even though all suggested dynamics can be observed in the preindustrial capitalist era already, intensifying economic competition for raw materials and export markets stemming from the emergence of industrial capitalism further amplified them.

The usual account of how this leads to imperialism is that the resulting overproduction and overinvestment requires an outlet, such as military spending, capital export, or sometimes stimulating consumer demand in dependent markets.

However, alternative theories hold that competition, the resultant need to move into areas of high profitability, or simply the desire to increase trade (and thus stimulate unequal exchange) are all sufficient explanations for imperialist policies and superprofits.

[145] Finally, the creation of a social-imperialist ideological camp led by a labor aristocracy tends to erode working class opposition to wars, usually by arguing that warfare benefits workers or foreign peoples in some way.

[144] Yet another explanation, which is more common in unequal exchange and world-systems theories, is that warfare and colonialism is used to assert the power of core countries, divide the world into areas with different wages or levels of development, and strengthen boundaries to limit labor mobility or the secure flow of trade.

According to Eric Hobsbawm, the term was coined by Engels in an 1885 introduction to The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, but it described a phenomenon which was already a familiar topic in English socio-political debate.

[155] Lenin also blamed the labour aristocrats’ social chauvinism and opportunism for the collapse of the Second International, arguing that the labor movement had to abandon the highest strata of workers to "go down lower and deeper, to the real masses.

[156] Zak Cope has adapted the theory of labor aristocracy to argue that the entire population of the core benefits from unequal exchange, historical imperialism and colonialism, direct transfers, and illicit financial flows in the form of welfare, higher wages, and cheaper commodity prices,[146] an idea criticized by Charles Post.

Karl Marx did not write about imperialism directly, but inspired many later theories.
Like many liberals, Hobson's objection to imperialism was strengthened by his disgust at the imbalance of power in the Boer War .
A modern steamboat and primitive rafts in the Chilean port of Huasco in the 1850s illustrate the concept of uneven development.
Hilferding cited the Rock Island Railroad Company as a typical concentration of finance capital.
To Hilferding, the Monroe Doctrine was an example of U.S. finance capital exacerbating the territorial division of the world.
Luxemburg wrote that the Opium wars were typical of European imperialist attempts to penetrate new markets.
The classical theories of imperialism were written in anticipation of, or in response to, the killing of the First World War.
Bukharin cited the giant landholding companies in German Kamerun as examples of monopoly companies aligned with a national imperialist bloc.
Lenin in Switzerland , around the time of writing Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism.
The enormous military and research investments of the Cold War can be explained through a need to solve over-investment resulting from underconsumption.
The problems of revolutionary nationalist movements undergoing decolonization were an important consideration for theorists of imperialism.
Andre Gunder Frank based his theories on observations of inequality in Latin America, exemplified by cities like São Paulo .
Arghiri Emmanuel wrote that the intensification of global trade created a hidden transfer of value from poor to rich countries.
A world map of countries by their trading status in 2000, using Wallerstein's categories of core countries (blue), semi-periphery countries (yellow) and periphery countries (red). Based on a list in Dunn, Kawana, Brewer.
Wallerstein suggested that the British Empire was briefly a true global hegemon during the early period of Pax Britannica .
Samir Amin wrote that an excessive reliance on exports, like a plantation economy , could be a sign of dependency and unequal development.
Hardt and Negri are widely regarded to have predicted key aspects of the War on Terror .
The theory of ecologically unequal exchange involves studying the transfer of ecologically harmful substances like pollution or plastic waste between countries.
The many American trusts around the turn of the century, exemplified in this Rockefeller-Morgan "Family Tree" (1904), inspired many early theories of monopoly capital.
A shared characteristic of many theories of imperialism is that colonization represented an attempt to export European crises to areas where brutality and exploitation was more acceptable .
Some modern theories hold that the creation of borders to limit labor mobility is an important objective of colonization and imperialism.
Development in colonized or peripheral economies is often contradictory, as shown by this slum in Buenos Aires near the central business district .
Bukharin and Lenin blamed the failure of the Second International to effectively oppose the First World War on the problem of labor aristocracy.