INTRODUCTION TO IMPERIALISM
Draft written by HG & AC, 6.17.02
This piece begins with a historical overview of imperialism, then it covers a theoretical
framework to help us understand imperialism and ends with anti-imperialist strategies.
SECTION 1: HISTORY OF IMPERIALISM
FEUDALISM
Feudalism was the economic system in Europe that came before capitalism in the Middle Ages.
It was based on a society ruled by kings, queens and lords who owned huge estates on which
the rest of the population worked as serfs. The serfs were peasants - like sharecroppers. Serfs
had to spend most of their time working on the lord’s crops in order to rent land that they
could work for their own families. They had hard lives – facing intense poverty and violence.
Their position at that point was not too different from peasants in the Third World.
The rulers of Europe were always fighting wars against each other in order to expand their
empires and gain more wealth. Eventually these wars spread outside of Europe when the
European rulers started to send out explorers and armies to colonize the Third World.
COLONIALISM
This process of colonization was an incredibly violent process, based on the mass murder of
indigenous people around the world and enforced slavery of African people and native people
on this continent. This intense violence has always been a central aspect of imperialism in its
stages of development.
European countries got a huge transfer of wealth by colonizing these Third World nations,
drawing primarily on:
Luxury goods (gold, silk, etc.)
Slave Labor
Land theft.
This huge flow of wealth from the Third World into Europe provided the money that was
needed to jump-start capitalism in Europe. Those resources didn’t come out of nowhere or
through individual capitalists saving up little bits of money over time. This accumulation of the
wealth needed to get capitalism going is called “primitive accumulation.”
This is on e of the key points in history where we can look to see the connection between
capitalism and white supremacy: that the drive for European wealth took the form of terrorism
against Third World nations and that wealth laid the basis for capitalism. This first “world
economy” – with put white nations in a position of power over third world nations and which
put the Third World at an economic disadvantage because of everything that had been stolen
from them - laid the basis for everything else that came afterwards.
COMPETITIVE CAPITALISM
Capitalists set up factories in Western Europe and in the Northeast of the United States where
they exploited the labor of white workers for low wages in horrible working conditions.
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The capitalists engaged in fierce competition with each other, knocking out the less-profitable
corporations to the point where a few major companies came to dominate each area of
production. These corporations are called “monopolies” because they monopolized the
market in their areas. Capitalism left the stage of “competitive capitalism” and entered the
stage of “Monopoly capitalism.”
MONOPOLY CAPITALISM
Under monopoly capitalism, these corporations kept getting bigger and bigger, producing more
and more goods. Eventually they get too big to be contained within their own countries.
They are producing too many goods to be sold in local markets (especially because they aren’t
paying their workers enough to buy their products); they need more materials than they can
get in their own countries. Monopoly capitalism requires international expansion – and
particularly capitalist expansion into the Third World. So then capitalism advances to a new
stage – imperialism.
IMPERIALISM
Imperialism is a stage of capitalism where international capitalist corporations dominate the
world economy and where First world nations dominate Third world nations in order to
advance the interests of their capitalists. Based fundamentally on a global system of white
supremacy, imperialism privileges white nations by exploiting Third world nations. Imperialism
also relies fundamentally on patriarchy – super-exploiting the labor of Third World women.
This is also the time frame when the United States rose to the position of becoming the
dominant power in the world, taking over the colonial role that European powers had played in
the last century.
There are three parts of Third World economies that First world nations and corporations
seek to dominate:
1.
Markets
Monopoly capitalism creates crises of overproduction where corporations
produce more goods than they can sell to their under-paid workers, throwing
the system into crisis. Imperialism is set up so that these excess goods can be
dumped into Third world markets for sale. This is harmful to the Third World
because it undercuts local production and increases their dependency on First
world producers.
2.
Raw Materials
One of the main things that imperialism seeks out is the rich natural resources of
the Third World – its metals like copper and gold, its rich agricultural products
like coffee, cocoa and cotton, and its energy fuels like oil, gas and coal.
Imperialism is set up so that U.S. & European corporations can get these
resources – which it needs for production - at incredibly cheap prices. This
harms the Third world by draining their resources, by underpaying them and by
destroying their environments.
3.
woMan-Power
So the raw materials didn’t come out of nowhere – crops had to be grown and
natural resources had to be mined. Imperialism requires a huge Third World
labor force – paid incredibly low wages at horribly low wages – to develop these
raw materials for export to the First World.
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These are not just random manifestations of a countries with bad policies. Capitalism as a
global system relies on this exploitation of the Third world to survive – in the same way that it
is based on the exploitation of wage labor. If this exploitation was stopped, capitalism wouldn’t
survive. The crises of overproduction would bankrupt imperialist corporations when they
wouldn’t have anywhere to sell their goods. Imperialist corporations would stop being
“competitive” if they paid fair prices for raw materials or fair wages for the workers who
produce these raw materials.
Again, this system is enforced by incredible violence – with the imperialist system using violence
to force their ways into Third World countries and using violence to crack down on any
countries that step out of line.
SEMI-FEUDALISM
The imperialist relationship between capitalism in First World nations and Third World nations
is not only about the resource drain from the Third world to the First world. It permanently
shapes the economies of the Third World to suit the needs of the First World – shaping the
economy around the production and export of raw materials and agricultural products instead
of production to meet the country’s own needs. These economies are called “semi-feudalism,”
meaning that they are locked into the global imperialist economy and stuck at the stage of
peasant economies - with small peasants living on land owned by a large land-lord, producing
crops and materials for export to the First World. This economy is stunted.
NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES & NEO-COLONIALISM
From the 1950’s to the 1970’s, many nations in the Third World engaged in liberation struggles
to win their independence from imperialism. From Ghana and Cuba to Vietnam and Iran,
Third world nations finally threw out the colonial governments of Britain, France, Portugal and
the United States.
These newly independent governments worked hard to build independent economies and to
provide much-needed services – like hospitals and schools – for their people, They
“nationalized” many parts of their economies, meaning that they took back their natural
resources (like oil fields, coffee plantations and copper mines) from U.S. and European
ownership. In order to start this process of re-building, Third World nations had to borrow
money to get started (remember the resources from primitive accumulation that let the U.S.
and Europe jump-start into capitalism?). They borrowed this money from private banks (at
really high interest rates) and started setting up factories and schools and so on.
But they couldn’t compete with U.S and European corporations who had tons more resources
and who controlled the world market. So by the 1980’s, the Third World nations had a hard
time paying back their huge loans, and the First World used this “debt crisis” to re-establish
their control through strict rules attached to their debt relief program. In order to get the
money they needed to pay off their loans from the International Monetary Fund, they had to
agree to implement structural adjustment programs which forced them to re-open their
economies for the domination of U.S. and European corporations and to dismantle their social
services programs – like schools and hospitals.
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So we call this “neo-colonialism” – a “new” form of colonialism where first world nations
control Third World nations primarily through their economies instead of through controlling
their governments directly
Again, the military force of the state is central in the enforcement of international domination.
But now, the new military strategy is to provide arms and training to Third World armies to
repress internal dissent, preventing U.S. protest against the loss of U.S. soldier’s lives.
GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is the newest form of imperialism where the relationship between First World
nations and Third World nations is a neo-colonial relationship – where U.S. and European
corporations are allowed to run amok in the economies of the Third World – exploiting Third
world workers and destroying Third World environments even worse than before.
An important difference is that imperialism allows capitalists to move beyond just exploiting the
workers in their own countries for production. The new structural adjustment policies and
more developed technologies allows corporations to start building factories and exploiting the
labor of workers around the world, forcing them into competition with one another to the
point where wages are driven down for workers everywhere. They pay workers in the Third
World much less in wages than they pay workers in the First World, and they super-exploit the
labor Third World women. This means super-profits for U.S. & European corporations.
Globalization is not fundamentally different than imperialism; it is just the newest manifestation
of imperialism.
SECTION 2:
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON THE
FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF IMPERIALISM
1. THE CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLY.
Competition in national markets ends. This happens because smaller corporations get
destroyed and swallowed by larger more powerful corporations. There are now only a few
huge corporations controlled by white men. They are able to determine the prices, the supply
of goods, and the workforce, and in the end, the livelihood of the vast majority of the people in
their country.
2. FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY (CONTROL BY A SMALL
GROUP OF PEOPLE)
All the money that was made during the early part of capitalism became so enormous that it
became a force in and of itself. Banks were able to directly influence corporations by
determining who would get loans and what projects in which to invest. The banks became the
main shareholders in the industrial corporations and then began to outright own them. Before,
banks just used to provide the service of facilitating investment capital to corporations that
needed them. Now, banks and corporation have become one and the same as the corporations
that the banks used to invest in have come under the control of the banks (either indirectly or
directly). There was a marriage between industrial capital (factories) and finance capital (banks).
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3. EXPORT OF CAPITAL
Because the banks and the victorious corporations made so much money during the early
period of capitalism, they needed to do something with it. They couldn’t just sit on it. After
successfully controlling and saturating the local economy, they needed to find places outside of
their own borders to invest.
Colonialism - which had allowed the capitalist countries to become capitalist in the first place
through slavery, genocide and land stealing - now could be used to export the capital to the
Third World. The imperialists did this by providing direct investments, loans and “aid.”
Colonialism forced nations into the capitalist world economy. Because of the destruction of
indigenous economies and subsistence livelihoods during colonialism, the imperialists were able
to set up shop and take advantage of the now-dependent colonies. After introducing the
imperialist money economy, they dumped their surplus products on the Third World. Due to
the now-developed need for money and capital, colonies sold the only thing they had - raw
materials - at extremely low prices.
“Destroy the nations ability to take care of itself and set yourself up as the only source of
opportunity,” is the key slogan for this aspect of imperialism.
4. ECONOMIC DIVISION OF THE WORLD
The economic division of the world is the world-scale planning by the biggest corporations. At
the turn of the century, the biggest corporations designated spheres of influence that
determined which corporation and which nation would control what market or part of the
world.
Today, this is represented in the concentration of capital and production in multi-national
corporations. It is feature number 1 on a world scale. What is produced is controlled by a few
large corporations run by mostly white men. They are able to determine the prices, the supply
of goods, and the workforce, and - in the end - the livelihood of the vast majority of the people
in the world.
5.
TERRITORIAL DIVISION OF THE WORLD THROUGH VIOLENCE
Imperialism means war and the preparation for war. The two world wars during the last 100
years were wars between imperialist nations vying for control of territory and markets. The
many wars for national liberation were directed against the imperialist oppressing nations in an
effort to break away from foreign control. Though there have not been a recent war between
the imperialists, each of the imperialist nations are in constant preparation for war. In addition
they are in the business of war preparations. Arms sales to puppet nations as well as to their
own nations is an enormous source of superprofit extracted from the tax payers of the various
nations.
Because of the concentration of capital and production, there arose the need for territorial
expansion to dump surplus capital, secure a source of raw materials, markets for surplus goods
and source of superprofits. This has driven the imperialist countries to intensify their colonial
and neo-colonial policies and to colonize and recolonize other countries.
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Though direct colonialism is no longer the norm, imperialists use various means to dominate
and control the politics, military, culture, and external relations of countries through semicolonialism (neo-colonialism). Among the means employed are:
• Governments opposed to imperialist polices are declared “criminal states,” and are targeted
for trade, loan and investment blockades; encirclement by military force; aggression;
assassination of their leader; arming of local reactionaries; and, nonstop denunciations in the
imperialist mass media and an international gatherings.
• Imperialists bind the semi-colonies to unequal bilateral and multilateral relations., ie
GATT/WTO, FTAA, APEC, etc. they interfere with the politics of the semi-colonies: they
groom, fund, train, and support reactionary leaders and political parties, and meddle in
elections.
• They control the supply of weapons, military equipment and technology as well as the
training of the high officials of the armed forces and police of the semi-colonies. School of
the Americas, Westpoint, etc.
• They use regional international agencies to make the semi-colonies follow their imperialist
dictates, ie. UN
• The people of the semi-colonies are bombarded continuously with imperialist propaganda
through the modern mass media, movies public education and others.
SECTION 3:
ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRATEGIES
Following is a brief survey of four basic anti-imperialist strategies.
STRIKE IMPERIALISM AT ITS WEAKEST LINKS.
Based on the understanding that imperialism is strongest at home, we therefore view the third
world as the area where imperialism is most vulnerable. It is in these areas that the people’s
victories most likely will occur. These struggles and resulting victories will create momentum
for an international movement against imperialism,
EACH NATIONAL LIBERATION VICTORY IS A STEP FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD
TOWARDS WORLD-WIDE ANTI-IMPERIALIST REVOLUTION.
“Two, Three Many Vietnams…” was the call by Che, and other revolutionaries. With the
initiation of strong liberation movements, imperialism will be stretched out and forced to
spread itself thin all over the world. As a result, it will be weakened. This weakening, alongside
with the strengthening of national liberation, will facilitate the successful victory of third world
revolutions. The accumulation of strength through successful national liberation movements will
slowly tip the balance of forces and strength away from the imperialists and towards the
people’s movements.
COORDINATED INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE WITH THE THIRD WORLD TAKING THE
LEAD, BUT WITH THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST FORCES IN THE FIRST WORLD, ORGANIZING
FOR VICTORY SIMULTANEOUSLY.
Directly related to the weakening of imperialism internationally, will be a weakening of
imperialism internally. This will create the conditions for heightened revolutionary antiimperialist struggle in the belly of the beast. Victories within the belly of the beast will help
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weaken imperialism and inturn facilitate the victories of national liberation movements against
imperialism. There is a direct relationship and unity between the domestic struggle and the
international struggle in that the enemy of imperialism is the same and sees victories
domestically as victories internationally, and vice versa.
PRINCIPLES FOR ANTI-IMPERIALIST MOVEMENTS IN THE US:
• Organize the people impacted by imperialism (that is, people of color, immigrants and poor
people) here to wage a revolutionary struggle inside the U.S.
• Promote anti-imperialist consciousness through mass political education, building of
revolutionary culture, mobilization of mass militant actions, etc.
• Organize solidarity for Third World liberation movements that generate moral, financial and
political support through building news and information papers, anti-intervention/anti-war
mass mobilizations, lobbying campaigns, solidarity organizations, etc.
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