Outline Lecture Eleven—Imperialism as Response to the Crisis of Capitalism
Key Focus:
1) Relationship between imperialism and capitalism
2) Economic imperatives and ideological rationale behind imperialism
I) “Creating A World After Its Own Image”
a) End to Capitalist Accumulation?
i) Limits of a nation’s natural resources
ii) Capitalism’s life-line
b) Marx’s Anticipation of a Transnational Bourgeois Class
i) Bourgeoisie “creating a world after its own image”
ii) Tearing down traditional barriers
c) Asymmetrical Interdependence within a Globalized Economy
i) Non-industrial countries provide cheap raw materials
ii) Industrial countries manufactured goods and “modern” services and amenities
iii) Who gains, who loses?
(1) Impact on Industrialized societies
(a) The colonial subjects became the European proletariats’ “proletariat”
(2) Impact on non-industrialized societies
d) “An international or geographic division of labor”
i) Bifurcated economic world
ii) The “science” behind a racial distribution of labor
iii) Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and “Social Darwinism”
(1) Used Darwin’s theory of natural selection to justify social and racial hierarchy
II) Imperialism as Capitalism’s Life-line
a) Hobson’s Thesis: The Dilemma of Too Much Wealth in Europe
i) Consumption unable to keep up with increased production
ii) Smith’s Law of accumulation debunked
b) The Pressures of Global Competition
i) Britain’s economic dominance up to 1870s
ii) After 1870, fledgling economies matured into powerful industries in their own right
c) Imperialism as Recourse to Crisis
i) Full-fledged support of governments in the “race to partition world”
ii) Imperialism vs. Colonialism
(1) Imperialism as both a mode of production and an ideology, a base and a
superstructure
III) The Rationale for Imperialism
a) A Costly and Dirty Business
i) Need to justify costs of imperialism to an increasingly skeptical public
b) National Security
i) The “geopolitical” angle
(1) Establish “spheres of influence” that are necessary for national survival
ii) The “nationalism” angle
(1) “The sun will never set on the British Empire!”
(2) “Nationalism” as capitalism’s handmaid
c) “The White Man’s Burden”—The “Cultural” Argument
i) Kipling 1899 poem
(1) “Go bind your sons to exile/To serve your captives’ needs”
(2) “Take up the White Man’s burden/ No tawdry rule of kings,
ii) “The Civilizing Mission”
(1) Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902)
(a) “We are the finest race in the world and the more of the world we inhabit, the
better it is for the human race”