Imperialism

Imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist mode of production, in which monopolies and cartels become the prevalent economic force of society.

Lenin synthesized a Marxist analysis of imperialism with the publishing of his pamphlet Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, most notably on the foundation of the earlier work of John A. Hobson entitled Imperialism: A Study. Beginning with the first paragraph of his pamphlet, Vladimir Lenin wrote that rapid growth of industry and concentration of production in growing enterprises represent the key characteristic of capitalism. He summarized it in one phrase as "the monopoly stage of capitalism".

Multiple theorists have updated, deepened, developed or critically engaged with the classical analysis of Imperialism. For example, Kwame Nkrumah, who wrote Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. Most recently, the concept of neoimperialism has emerged in the work of Cheng Enfu.

The development of imperialism in the global economy also reinforces a dialectical relationship between core-periphery countries, mainly dependency and subordination of underdeveloped countries to imperialist economies. In conjunction with these developments, new theoretical models were proposed to understand developments, such as dependency theory and world-systems theory.

Theoretical overview

In Vladimir Lenin's further analysis of imperialism, this economic stage is defined by five basic features:

• The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
• The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
• The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
• The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels).
• The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers. This expansion to Marx's analysis of capitalist development was one of Lenin's most important theoretical contributions to political economy.

Marx posited, according to his three laws of motion, that as capitalist economies matured, they would inevitably be driven into a crisis which would result in internal class revolt and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat (and eventually socialism). However, according to Lenin's observations, the development of imperialism allowed capitalism to postpone this crisis through the acquisition of colonies, which served as a new outlets for capital investment and a new source of labour power to exploit.

This scramble for the expansion of capitalist empires drove the various imperialist powers into a competition with one another over the size of their imperialist spheres of influence and access to resources and labour markets, which led to destructive inter-imperialist conflicts such as the First World War. Imperialism thus stretches the inherent contradictions of capitalism to ever more extreme limits, leading J.V. Stalin to deem Leninism the "Marxism of the era of imperialism".

Imperialism as a stage of development in capitalism means that it will always develop in any sufficiently advanced capitalist mode of production. As markets become saturated within the boundaries of the individual nation (due to an influx of producers), capital must be exported elsewhere, and the main function of banks is to help with that (see finance capitalism).

Countries must eventually turn to imperialism for two main reasons:

1. Capitalism requires constant consumption, which translates into constant growth (and GDP growth). Without GDP growth, capitalism stagnates and a recession occurs. However, since it is impossible to expect infinite growth with finite available resources and as markets become saturated, the bourgeoisie must seek new opportunities.
2. The bourgeoisie is also in constant internal competition, and as such there is a very rational reason for a capitalist to emerge victorious over the competition; accessing untapped markets and cheaper labour will give them an edge over the competition.

However, imperialized countries will not be allowed to develop past the most primitive stage of capitalism, preventing them from developing their own imperialism. In these countries, we may see the emergence of two distinct subsections of the bourgeoisie. Firstly, a "comprador" class, i.e. the section of the national bourgeoisie which is allied with, and dependent upon, foreign imperialist investment; and second, the "national" bourgeoisie, whose class interests are, at least temporarily, aligned with the exploited working class: to achieve national liberation (so that they can become exploiters without being exploited, upon which point their tentative alignment with the national proletariat will end).

Origins and historical development

Most modern imperialist countries originated as genocidal colonial powers

The development of imperialism began with the Panic of 1873, which caused an economic depression lasting through the 1880s. When the economy recovered in 1889, cartels took advantage of the situation and drove up prices. After another depression from 1900 to 1903, they became even stronger and controlled the coal, mining, and iron industries by 1905.

The early 20th century was marked by several imperialist, colony-grabbing wars: the Spanish-Statesian War of 1898, the Boer War of 1899-1902, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912, and the Balkan wars of 1912-1913. These various conflicts between the imperialist powers of Europe reached an explosive head, culminating in the 1914 war, popularly known as World War I. It is in this historic context of the build-up to WW1, the great race by the various western powers for colonial tributaries—instigated by the burgeoning needs of capital and capital reproduction—that Lenin wrote up the foundation theory of Imperialism.

Contemporary imperialism

Imperial core

Diagram of the four rings of the imperial core from Tricontinental

Today, imperialism is still very much alive as Lenin described. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for example were institutions created for the benefit of the imperial core (the richest and oldest capitalist economies, grossly encompassing North America and Western Europe) so as to perpetually keep former colonised countries in debt that they can not repay. The IMF is known to demand specific free market policies put into place so as to facilitate movement of capital from the imperial core towards these ex-colonies, also known as the Global South. On top of having many strings attached, the IMF is allowed to seize projects when loans cannot be paid back, and they often can't due to very harsh payment plans (usually very high interest rates over a 7-year period).

This "soft" imperialism is not the only form of imperialism happening, and we can look at the US Invasion of Iraq in 2003 for a "harder" form of imperialism. In this case, the entire country of Iraq as well as the surrounding region was destabilized, which allowed U.S. oil companies to eliminate competition and seize these wells for themselves.

Imperialist military

Imperialism is enforced by military power—especially, since the early 20th century, by U.S. military power. One indication of this is the large number of military bases that the U.S. maintains in foreign countries and the large number of U.S. troops stationed around the world.

U.S. military personnel in Europe

At the end of 2021, the United States had 74,000 military personnel stationed in Europe in long-term positions (according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service). Not all are combat-ready troops. The numbers of these U.S. personnel in some particular countries is as follows:

• Germany: 36,000
• Italy: 12,000
• Britain: 9,000
• Spain: 3,000
• Turkey: 1,600

Besides these personnel, the U.S. rotates 4,500 troops through Poland.

Myths

Soviet "imperialism"

During the Cold War, a rivalry between the world's two global powers at the time (the USA and the Soviet Union), the CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom cultivated a milieu of anti-Soviet leftists to advance the geopolitical line of the US. One accusation that was leveled against the Soviet Union was that it was yet another imperialist state, based on the conflicts which happened between the Soviet Union and China. USSR did not practice imperialism in the Leninist sense — it did not export capital and was not under control of a financial oligarchy.

Chinese "imperialism"

In modern times, some accuse China of being imperialist, mainly in Africa. These people again use the liberal definition of imperialism and can be ignored in much the same way.

With its Belt and Road Initiative, China does not practice the same harsh policies as the IMF (namely, forcing austerity upon loan recipients) and that is why they are being favored by more and more countries, leading to a disinformation campaign by the imperial core to help drive popular support from the B&R and back towards the IMF. Famously, Chinese loans pay for infrastructure (needed for development), are often forgiven , and there are no policies required to get such a loan.

Russian "imperialism"

In certain circles, there have been attempts to paint the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as a war between two imperialist countries, the United States and Russia. Similarly to the above Chinese example, this is incorrect.

Unlike the western powers, Russia does not have any capital monopolies that control the world market or supply chains. Russia having Gazprom and an extraction industry doesn’t mean they are imperialist. The essence of imperialism is monopolistic on a global scale, which is precisely why Russia is not imperialist, not whether they have capital generally. A perfect example of monopolies that share the world amongst themselves is the West, specifically the United States in their control of the WEF, IMF, World Bank, and UN Security Council, allowing the western powers to enforce this dominance through jingoistic foreign policy, embargoes, and hindering the development of other countries. Neither Russia nor China has anywhere close to this level of global power through finance capital.

Russia lacks finance capital and division of the world's resources. It only has 4 of the top 100 corporations in the world and 6 of the top 500. 82% of Russian exports are raw materials, including 58% oil, 11% metal, and 6% food. In 2017, Russia imported $106.2 billion worth' of machine goods and only exported $12.8 billion. Russia does not have any of the top 100 corporations in terms of capital export, and most Russian capital export is capital flight to tax havens. Russia only controls 0.7% of the world's wealth and has much less wealth per adult than the United States ($8,843 vs $336,528). Russia has intervened militarily in other countries such as Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, but not to seize natural resources like imperialist countries do.

Early theoreticians (pre-1945)

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels alluded to imperialism in The principles of communism:

In this way, all semi-barbarian countries, which had hitherto been more or less strangers to historical development, and whose industry had been based on manufacture, were violently forced out of their isolation. They bought the cheaper commodities of the English and allowed their own manufacturing workers to be ruined. Countries which had known no progress for thousands of years – for example, India – were thoroughly revolutionized, and even China is now on the way to a revolution.

We have come to the point where a new machine invented in England deprives millions of Chinese workers of their livelihood within a year’s time.

In this way, big industry has brought all the people of the Earth into contact with each other, has merged all local markets into one world market, has spread civilization and progress everywhere and has thus ensured that whatever happens in civilized countries will have repercussions in all other countries.

— Engels, Principles of communism

At the time of his writing, imperialism was not yet a word in common use (not until the 1870s) however, policies of imperialism were already happening around the world—especially at hands of the British Empire in Africa.

Given that imperialism is, (according to Lenin) the highest stage of capitalism, one tendency of imperialism is to export the class conflict of a nation to foreign lands. Thus, the British nation, in order to solve its problem of unemployment and food scarcity along a capitalist basis (without socialism; redistribution of wealth and power to the commoners through social ownership), had to find new lands to settle the unemployed.

"In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, our colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population of this country, to provide new markets. ... The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question."

— Cecil Rhodes, British imperialist, as quoted in Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

Later Theoreticians (post-1945)

Michael Parenti

Michael Parenti described several examples of imperialism in Against Empire.

By "imperialism" I mean the process whereby the dominant politico-economic interests of one nation expropriate for their own enrichment the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of another people.

The earliest victims of Western European imperialism were other Europeans. Some 800 years ago, Ireland became the first colony of what later became known as the British empire. A part of Ireland still remains under British occupation. Other early Caucasian victims included the Eastern Europeans. The people Charlemagne worked to death in his mines in the early part of the ninth century were Slavs. So frequent and prolonged was the enslavement of Eastern Europeans that "Slav" became synonymous with servitude. Indeed, the word "slave" derives from "Slav." Eastern Europe was an early source of capital accumulation, having become wholly dependent upon Western manufactures by the seventeenth century.

A particularly pernicious example of intra-European imperialism was the Nazi aggression during World War II, which gave the German business cartels and the Nazi state an opportunity to plunder the resources and exploit the labor of occupied Europe, including the slave labor of concentration camps.

The preponderant thrust of the European, North American, and Japanese imperial powers has been directed against Africa, Asia, and Latin America. By the nineteenth century, they saw the Third World as not only a source of raw materials and slaves but a market for manufactured goods. By the twentieth century, the industrial nations were exporting not only goods but capital, in the form of machinery, technology, investments, and loans. To say that we have entered the stage of capital export and investment is not to imply that the plunder of natural resources has ceased. If anything, the despoliation has accelerated.

[...]

Imperialism is older than capitalism. The Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and Mongol empires all existed centuries before the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Emperors and conquistadors were interested mostly in plunder and tribute, gold and glory. Capitalist imperialism differs from these earlier forms in the way it systematically accumulates capital through the organized exploitation of labor and the penetration of overseas markets. Capitalist imperialism invests in other countries, transforming and dominating their economies, cultures, and political life, integrating their financial and productive structures into an international system of capital accumulation.

A central imperative of capitalism is expansion. Investors will not put their money into business ventures unless they can extract more than they invest. Increased earnings come only with a growth in the enterprise. The capitalist ceaselessly searches for ways of making more money in order to make still more money. One must always invest to realize profits, gathering as much strength as possible in the face of competing forces and unpredictable markets.

— Michael Parenti, Against Empire. City Lights Books., 1995, p. 5

Non-marxist theoreticians

Further Reading

Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism
Neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism
Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism