Imperialism 2003

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International Relations

IMPERIALISM

TERM REPORT

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (SECTION C)

SUBMITTED TO : DR SAHIB ALI KHAN CHANNA

DATED : 8th April 2010

PREPARED BY: Irfan Junejo - 9063

2 | P a g eIMPERIALISM Term Report


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LETTER OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................. 5

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 7

HISTORY OF IMPERIALISM .................................................................................. 7

EARLYEMPIRES...........................................................................................................................7

CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY....................................................................................................................8

MIDDLE AGES ...........................................................................................................................8

COLONIALEMPIRES ....................................................................................................................10

MODERNPERIOD ......................................................................................................................11

EMPIREFROM 1945 TOTHEPRESENT...............................................................................................14

OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................... 17

DEFINITIONS FROM SOME OTHER SOURCES ....................................................... 18

EMPIRE ............................................................................................................ 19

TYPES OF IMPERIALISM .................................................................................... 20

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM................................................................................................................20

HEGEMONY..............................................................................................................................22

NEW IMPERIALISM......................................................................................................................23

Background ....................................................................................................................24

Rise of New Imperialism .................................................................................................25

Theories Of New Imperialism .........................................................................................27

OIL IMPERIALISM .............................................................................................. 35

Control of oil...................................................................................................................35

Criticism .........................................................................................................................36

SCIENTIFIC IMPERIALISM ....................................................................................................36

CRITIQUE OF POWER ......................................................................................................37

RELIGION OF INTELLECTUALS .........................................................................................38

MARGINALIZED ...............................................................................................................38

IN MEDICINE ...................................................................................................................39

ULTRA-IMPERIALISM (HYPER IMPERIALISM) ....................................................... 40

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM .................................................................................. 42

IMPERIALISM IN ASIA ........................................................................................ 44

IMPERIALISM IN CHINA ..................................................................................... 46

QINGTERRITORIALEXPANSION.........................................................................................................46

USINGIMPERIALISMTODESCRIBE QINGEXPANSION.................................................................................46

THEPROCESSOFEXPANSION..........................................................................................................47



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EUROPEANPENETRATIONOF CHINA...................................................................................................49

LIST OF TERRITORIES OCCUPIED BY IMPERIAL JAPAN .......................................... 52

OVERVIEW..............................................................................................................................52

PRE-WORLD WAR II..................................................................................................................52

WORLD WAR II........................................................................................................................53

JAPANESE AND CHINESE RESPONSES TO IMPERIALISM ....................................... 54

DEFINITION OF IMPERIALISM IN DIFFERENT DICTIONARIES ................................. 56

DICTIONARY.............................................................................................................................56

BUSINESS DICTIONARY.................................................................................................................56

US MILITARY DICTIONARY............................................................................................................56

GEOGRAPHY DICTIONARY..............................................................................................................57

POLITICAL DICTIONARY.................................................................................................................57

CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM ................................................................................ 58

THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY ........................................................... 64

VLADIMIR LENINS APPROACH ........................................................................... 67

LENINISM................................................................................................................................67

IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGEOF CAPITALISM.................................................................................68

PUBLICATIONHISTORY..................................................................................................................69

INDEX .............................................................................................................. 70

REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 71



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Letter of Acknowledgement

I am thankful to Allah Almighty for giving me the capability and strength to complete

this Term report on Imperialism of the Course, International Relations.

I would also like to thank my course instructor Dr. SAHIB ALI KHAN CHANNA whose

utmost dedication and devotion provided me with the insight to analyze all the

situations. It was due to his guidance and teachings that enabled me to finish thisterm report.

I would also like to thank All the Sources who have cooperated with me and provided

me with all the information that I required to complete this report. I express sincere

gratitude to our parents for their continuous support throughout the preparation of

this report.

Prepared By:

Irfan Junejo

2008-1-83-9063



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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Dr SAHIB ALI CHANNA November 23, 2010

Course Instructor, Department of International Relations

Institute of Business Management

Korangi Creek

Karachi

Dear Sir,

Here is my term report on IMPERIALISM, which is to be submitted on April 8 . This

report analyzes the various practices of IMPERIALISM followed by the WORLD.

I greatly benefited from this report as my term report.It helped me to widen my

vision, improve my quality of work, build self-reliance work and it gave a vital experience in

order to improve my analytical skills.

I hope it is up to your expectations and fulfils all the requirements given by you.

Sincerely,

Irfan Junejo



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INTRODUCTION

Imperialism is autocratic, and also sometimes monolithic in

character. While the term imperialism often refers to a political

or geographical domain such as the Ottoman Empire the

Russian Empire, or the British Empire, etc., the term can

equally be applied to domains of knowledge, beliefs, values

and expertise, such as the empires of Christianity or Islam.

The belief in the desirability of the acquisition of colonies and

dependencies, or the extension of a country's influencethrough trade, diplomacy, etc.

HISTORY OF IMPERIALISM

Early empires

The imperial concept predates the Roman Empire by millennia;

the Akkadian Empire of Sargon of Akkad (24th century BC),

was the earliest model of a geographically extensive terrestrial

empire. In the 15th century BC, the loosely-organized New

Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, ruled by Thutmose III, was the

ancient Near Easts major force upon incorporating Nubia and

the ancient city-states of the Levant. Despite their imperial

condition, these early empires had no effective administrative

control of their subject territories. The ancient worlds earliest,

centrally-organized empire, comparable to Rome, was the

Assyrian empire (2000612 BC), and the first, successful, multi-

cultural empire was the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550330



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BC), then the most extensive, comprehending Egypt, Greece,

Western Asia (the Middle East), Central Asia, and India.

Classical Antiquity

The Roman Empire was the most extensive Western empire

until the early modern period.

Prior to the Roman Empire the kingdom of Macedonia, under

Alexander the Great, became an empire that spanned from

Greece to India. After Alexanders death, his empire fractured

into four, discrete kingdoms ruled by the Diadochi, which,

despite being independent, are denoted as the "HellenisticEmpire", given the Greek influence.

In the East, the term Persian Empire denotes the imperial

states established at different historical periods of preIslamic

and postIslamic Persia. And in the Far East, various Celestial

Empires arose periodically in China between periods of civil

war and foreign conquests. The Han Empire was one of the

worlds largest Empires in Antiquity, and one of Chinas most

long lived dynasties.

Middle Ages

The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire.

For centuries, in the West, empire was exclusively applied to

States that considered themselves the heirs and successors of

the Roman Empire, e.g. the Byzantine Empire, the German Holy

Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, yet, said states were not

always technically geographic, political, military empires.To legitimize their imperium, these states directly claimed the

title of Empire from Rome. The sacrum Romanum imperium

(8001806), claimed to have exclusively comprehended

Christian German principalities, was only nominally a discrete

imperial state. The Holy Roman Empire was not always



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centrally-governed, as it had neither core nor peripheral

territories, was not multi-ethnic, and was not governed by a

central, politico-military lite hence, Voltaires remark that

the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an

empire is accurate to the degree that it ignores German ruleover Italian, French, Provenal, Polish, Flemish, Dutch, and

Bohemian populations, and the efforts of the eighth-century

Holy Roman Emperors (i.e. the Ottonians) to establish central

control; thus, Voltaires . . . nor an empire observation

applies to its late period.

In 1204, after the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, the

crusaders established a Latin Empire (12041261) in that city,while the defeated Byzantine Empires descendants

established two, smaller, short-lived empires in Asia Minor: the

Empire of Nicaea (12041261) and the Empire of Trebizond

(12041461). In the event, the Muslim Ottoman Empire

(ca.13001918), conquered most of that region by 1453.

Moreover, Eastern Orthodox imperialism was not re-

established until the coronation, in 1682, of Peter the Great as

Emperor of Russia. Like-wise, with the collapse of the Holy

Roman Empire, in 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars (1803

1815), the Austrian Empire (1804-1867), emerged

reconstituted as the Empire of AustriaHungary (18671918),

having inherited the imperium of Central and Western

Europe from the losers of said wars.

In the South India the Dravidian empire the Cholas were at the

height of their power continuously from the latter half of the

9th century till the beginning of the 13th centuries. Under

Rajaraja Chola I and his son Rajendra Chola I, the dynastybecame a military, economic and cultural power in Asia. During

the period 10101200, the Chola territories stretched from the

islands of the Maldives in the south to as far north as the

banks of the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh. Rajaraja Chola

conquered entire South India, annexed parts of Sri Lanka and



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occupied the islands of the Maldives. Rajendra Chola sent a

victorious expedition to North India that touched the river

Ganga and defeated the Pala ruler of Pataliputra, Mahipala. He

also successfully invaded kingdoms of the Malay Archipelago.

The Mongol Empire, under Genghis Khan in the thirteenth

century, was forged as the largest contiguous empire in the

world. Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan, was proclaimed

emperor, and established his imperial capital at Beijing;

however, in his reign, the empire became fractured into four,

discrete khanates.

Colonial empires

The discovery of the New World (the Americas and Australasia)

in the 15th century, proved opportune for European countries

to launch colonial imperialism like that of the Romans and the

Carthaginians. In the Old World, colonial imperialism was

attempted, affected, and established upon the Canary Islands

and Ireland, wherein, the conquered lands and peoples became

de jure subordinates of the empire, rather than de facto

imperial territory and subjects. In the event, such subjugation

elicited client-state resentment that the empire unwisely

ignored, leading to the collapse of the European colonial

imperial system in the late-nineteenth century and the early-

and mid-twentieth century.

An inherent problem of European colonial imperialism was the

matter of the arbitrary territorial boundaries of the colonies.

For administrative expediency, discrete colonies wereestablished solely by convenient geography while ignoring

the sometimes extreme cultural differences among the

conquered populace(s); effective in the short-term control of

the subject peoples, but politically, militarily, and economically

ineffective in the imperial long-term. For the British Empire,



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this occurred with the populaces of the colony of India the

Indian sub-continent who, on partition and independence, in

1947, divided themselves by culture and religion, not

geography, and established the modern countries of India and

Pakistan (the geographically-distant states of West Pakistanand East Pakistan), which later, respectively, became Pakistan

(The Islamic Republic of Pakistan), in 1947, and Bangladesh

(The Peoples Republic of Bangladesh), in 1971. Moreover, in

Africa, said arbitrary imperial borders remain, and define the

contemporary countries, because the African Unions explicit

policy is their preservation in avoiding political instability and

concomitant war.

Modern period

In time, most monarchies,

usually kingdoms, styled

themselves as having greater

size, scope, and power than the

territorial, politico-military, and

economic facts allowed; despite

that, they assumed the title of

Emperor (or its corresponding

translation: Tsar, Emperador,

Kaiser, et cetera) and re-named their states as The Empire

of . . . . For example, in 1056, King Ferdinand I of Len,

proclaimed himself Emperor of Hispania, and began the

Reconquista (7181492) of the Iberian Peninsula from the

Muslims; another, medieval example is Bulgaria.

In the 19th century, the French emperors Napoleon I and

Napoleon III (See: Second Mexican Empire [18641867]) each

attempted establishing a Western imperial hegemony based in

France; and the German Empire (18711918), another heir to

the Holy Roman Empire arose in 1871. In consequence, the


The SpanishPortuguese Empire in theIberian Union (15801640) period;Spanish Empire (red), Portuguese Empir(blue)


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Europeans began applying the conceptual political structure of

empire to non-European monarchies, such as the Manchu

Dynasty and the Mughal Empire, and then to past polities,

leading, eventually, to the looser denotations applicable to any

political structure (monarchic or not) meeting the criteria ofimperium; thus, the empire synonyms: tsardom, realm, reich,

and raj.

Empires accrete to different types of states, although, they

traditionally originated as powerful monarchies ruled by an

hereditary (sometimes self-appointed) emperor, nevertheless,

the Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the British

Empire developed under elective auspices, while the BrazilianEmpire declared itself an empire born of a Portuguese colony

in 1822, and France has twice transited from being the French

Republic to being the French Empire; whilst nominally a

republic, France remained an overseas empire; to date, it

governs a territorial, colonial empire (French Guyana,

Martinique, Runion, French Polynesia, New Caledonia) and an

hegemony in Francophone Africa (Chad, Rwanda, et cetera).

Historically, empires resulted from military conquest, with the

conqueror incorporating the vanquished states to its political

union; yet, a strong state could establish imperial hegemony

with minimal militarism. The victim-states inability to

militarily resist, and its knowledge of that inability, usually

suffices to convince it to negotiate for annexation, rather than

conquest, to the empire. For example, the bequest of

Pergamon, by Attalus III, to the Roman Empire, in antiquity,

and, the Unification of Germany as the empire accreted to the

Prussian metropole, whose military action was less a military

conquest of the German states, than their political divorce

from the Austrian Empire. Having convinced them of its



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military prowess and having excluded the Austrians

Prussia dictated the terms of imperial membership to the

nominally independent German states joining what initially

was a revamped customs union; thus, via Prussian hegemony,

the German states mostly retained the trappings ofsovereignty, and the hegemon empire avoided a protracted

war of conquest and consolidation.

In sub-continental Asia, the Sikh Empire (17991846) was

established in the Punjab, by the Maharaja Ranjit Singh, after

the Sikhs defeated the Afghan Empire; it comprised the

territory from Kabul to Delhi. The Sikh Empire collapsed at

Ranjit Singhs death, when despite the Sikhs havingopportunity of capturing the local colony of the British Empire

Tej Singh and Lal singh betrayed their army to the British in

1846.

Politically, it was typical for either a monarchy, or an oligarchy,

rooted in the original, core territory of the empire, to continue

dominating said union of states. Usually, such government was

maintained via control of a natural resource vital to the

colonial subjects, usually, water; such rgimes were

denominated hydraulic empires. Moreover, pace Edward

Gibbon, the empires introduction of a common religion

amenable to every subject populace also strengthened the

imperial political structure, as occurred with the adoption of

Christianity under Constantine I.

In time, an empire metamorphoses to another form of polity;

thus, the Bernese Empire of conquest ceased existing when its

conquered territories were (culturally) incorporated, either to

the Canton of Bern or to other cantons of the Swiss

Confederation. To wit, the Holy Roman Empire, a German re-



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constitution of the Roman Empire, metamorphosed into

various political structures (i.e. Federalism), and, eventually,

under Habsburg rule, re-constituted itself as the Austrian

Empire an empire of much different politics and vaster

extension. After the Second World War (19391945) the BritishEmpire, evolved into a loose, multi-national Commonwealth of

Nations; while the French Colonial empire metamorphosed to a

Francophone commonwealth; and the Soviet Empire became

the Commonwealth of Independent States.

An autocratic empire can progress to being a republic, usually

with a coup detat (e.g. Brazil in 1889; the Central African

Empire in 1979); or it can become a republic with its imperialdominions reduced to a core territory (e.g. Weimar Germany,

19181919 and the Ottoman Empire, 19181923). The

dissolution of the AustroHungarian Empire, in 1918, is an

example of a multi-ethnic superstate devolving to its

constituent states: the republics, kingdoms, and provinces of

Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia, Galicia, et al.

Empire from 1945 to the present

* Etymology and semantics; Contemporaneously, the

concept of Empire is politically valid, yet, is losing semantic

cohesion; for example, Japan, the worlds sole empire, is a

constitutional monarchy, with an heterogeneous population

that is 97 per cent ethnic Japanese and a land mass smaller

than that of other modern nations. Moreover, given thedisfavour against absolute monarchy and the absence of any

government with explicitly imperial policies, the term empire

might become a linguistic anachronism; nonetheless, as

political science, the military command of Imperium evolved to

the political structure of Empire, which evolved into hegemonic

Imperialism its theoretical denotations and connotations of



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global capitalism as imperialism derive from Imperialism, the

Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Vladimir Lenins incisive,

analytic study of cultural and economic hegemony.

* Communist Empire; the USSR (19221991) met the

imperium criteria, was governed by a ruling group, not an

hereditary emperor (cf. Soviet Empire), yet never identified

itself as such; nevertheless, its anti-Communist, ideological

opponents, most notably the US President Ronald Reagan and

the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, named it The Evil

Empire, tacitly contrasting it with The Good Empire of the

democratic West. Academically, the USSR was denominated

imperial, given its likeness to empires past and its ideologicappeal to the poor peoples of Eurasia.[citation needed].

* Capitalist Empire; identifying the USAs American Empire,

by its international behavior, is controversial in that country.

To wit, Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the publics self-

styled sense of innocence about Realpolitik (cf. American

Exceptionalism) impairs popular recognition of US imperial

conduct, because it governs via surrogates domestically-

weak, right-wing governments that collapse without US

support. To wit, G.W. Bush Administration Secretary of

Defense Donald Rumsfeld having said: We dont seek

empires. Were not imperialistic; we never have been

directly contradicts Thomas Jefferson, in the 1780s, awaiting

the fall of the Spanish empire: . . . till our population can be

sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece

[sic]. In turn, historian Sidney Lens confirms Jefferson, notingthat, from its British imperial independence, the US has used

every means to dominate other nations.



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* Historically imperial countries China, India, Indonesia,

Myanmar, Russia, Spain whose body politic comprises

violent and peaceful political separatist groups, whether or not

State action controlling their activities is legitimate law-

enforcement or imperial repression remains debated. Unlike anempire, modern multi-ethnic states are federations (e.g.

Belgium) and commonwealth unions (e.g. the UK) whose

democratic political systems share governing power at the

federal, provincial, and state jurisdictions.

* European Empire redux; in the postCold War era, since

the European Union began, in 1993, as a west European trade

bloc, it established its own currency, the Euro, in 1999,established discrete military forces, and exercised its

hegemony in eastern Europe and in Asia, behavior which the

political scientist, Jan Zielonka, posits as imperial, because it

coerces its neighbor countries to adopt its European economic,

legal, and political structures.

* The Age of Nation Empires as the Order of the World in the

twenty-first century; in his book review of Empire (2000), by

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Mehmet Akif Okur positsthat, since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US,

the international relations determining the worlds balance of

power (political, economic, military) have been altered by the

intellectual (political science) trends that perceive the

contemporary worlds order via the re-territorrialization of

political space, the re-emergence of classical imperialist

practices (the inside vs. outside duality, cf. the Other), the

deliberate weakening of international organizations, the

restructured international economy, economic nationalism, theexpanded arming of most countries, the proliferation of

nuclear-weapon capabilities, and the politics of identity

emphasizing a States subjective perception of its place in the

world, as a nation and as a civilization. These changes

constitute the Age of Nation Empires; as imperial usage,



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nation-empire denotes the return of geopolitical power from

global power blocs to regional power blocs (i.e. centered upon

a regional power State [China, Russia, US, et al.]), and

regional multi-state power alliances (i.e. Europe, Latin

America, South East Asia), thus nation-empire regionalismclaims sovereignty over their respective (regional) political

(social, economic, ideologic), cultural, and military spheres.

OVERVIEW

Imperialism is found in the ancient histories of the Assyrian

Empire, Roman Empire, Greece, the Persian Empire, and the

Ottoman Empire (see Ottoman wars in Europe), ancient Egypt,

India, the Aztec empire, and a basic component to the

conquests of Genghis Khan and other warlords. Although

imperialist practices have existed for thousands of years, the

term "Age of Imperialism" generally refers to the activities of

nations such as Britain, Japan, and Germany in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, e.g. the "Scramble

for Africa" and the "Open Door Policy" in China.

The word itself is derived from the Latin verb imperare (to

command) and the Roman concept of imperium, while the

actual term 'Imperialism' was coined in the sixteenth century,

reflecting what are now seen as the imperial policies of

Portugal, Spain, Britain, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands

in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Imperialism not only

describes colonial, territorial policies, but also economic and/ormilitary dominance and influence.



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DEFINITIONS FROM SOME OTHER SOURCES

Definition 3 in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2007) is

particularly apropos to our second (attitude) meaning above;

and also to the issue of how far non-military and not-overtly-

territorial control can be called imperialism:

[Imperialism:] The belief in the desirability of the acquisition

of colonies and dependencies, or the extension of a country's

influence through trade, diplomacy, etc. Usu. derog.

Also on the issue of non-military control, we have this from the

first paragraph of the article, "Imperialism," in the

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (second

edition):

. . . Commonly associated with the policy of direct extension

of sovereignty and dominion over non-contiguous and often

distant overseas territories, it also denotes indirect political oreconomic control of powerful states over weaker peoples.

Regarded also as a doctrine based on the use of deliberate

force, imperialism has been subject to moral censure by its

critics, and thus the term is frequently used in international

propaganda as a pejorative for expansionist and aggressive

foreign policy.

The following passage, from Wm. Roger Louis, Imperialism

(1976) is also informative. He is discussing an influentialtheory of 19th century European imperialism by the historians

John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson:

More specifically, Robinson and Gallagher attack the

traditional notion that "imperialism" is the formal rule or

control by one people or nation over others. In their view,



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historians have been mesmerized by formal empire and maps

of the world with regions colored red. The bulk of British

emigration, trade, and capital went to areas outside the formal

British Empire. A key to the thought of Robinson and Gallagher

is the idea of empire "informally if possible and formally ifnecessary." [This last phrase referring to the fact that the

British government was often reluctant to entangle itself with

formal colonies. -- Wikipedia.

EMPIREEmpire derives from the Latin word imperium, denoting

military command in Ancient Rome. Politically, an empire isa geographically extensive group of states and peoples (ethnic

groups) united and ruled either by a monarch (emperor,

empress) or an oligarchy. Geopolitically, the term empire has

denoted very different, territorially-extreme states at the

strong end, the extensive Spanish Empire (16th c.) and the

British Empire (19th c.), at the weak end, the Holy Roman

Empire (8th c.19th c.), in its Medieval and early-modern

forms, and the anmic Byzantine Empire (15th c.), that was a

direct continuation of the Roman Empire, that, in its final

century of existence, was more a city-state than a territorial

empire.

Etymologically, the political usage of empire denotes a

strong, centrally-controlled nation-state, but, in the looser,

quotidian, vernacular usage, it denotes a large-scale business

enterprise (i.e. a transnational corporation) and a politicalorganization of either national-, regional-, or city scale,

controlled either by a person (a political boss) or a group

authority (political bosses).



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An imperial political structure is established and maintained

two ways: (i) as a territorial empire of direct conquest and

control with force (direct, physical action to compel the

emperors goals), and (ii) as a coercive, hegemonic empire of

indirect conquest and control with power (the perception thatthe emperor can physically enforce his desired goals). The

former provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet

limits further expansion, because it absorbs military forces to

fixed garrisons. The latter provides less tribute and indirect

control, but avails military forces for further expansion.

Territorial empires (e.g. the Mongol Empire, the Median

Empire) tended to be contiguous areas; while maritime

empires or thalassocracies, (e.g. the Athenian, Achaemenid

Persian Empire, and British Empire) are intercontinental, far-flung overseas empires.

TYPES OF IMPERIALISM

Cultural Imperialism

Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting,

distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture

or language of one culture into another. It is usually the case

that the former belongs to a large, economically or militarily

powerful nation and the latter belongs to a smaller, less

important one. Cultural imperialism can take the form of an

active, formal policy or a general attitude. The term is usually

used in a pejorative sense, usually in conjunction with a call to

reject foreign influence.

Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting,

distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture

or language of one culture into another. It is usually the case



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that the former belongs to a large, economically or militarily

powerful nation and the latter belongs to a smaller, less

important one. Cultural imperialism can take the form of an

active, formal policy or a general attitude. The term is usually

used in a pejorative sense, usually in conjunction with a call toreject foreign influence.

Some real-world examples that may illustrate various forms of

cultural imperialism are:

* The forced assimilation of the Ainu of Japan through the

slaughter of the deer they depended on for sustenance andcultural survival.

* The beating of Native Hawaiian children for speaking the

Hawaiian language in school during the early territorial period.

* The importation of items such as infant formula into non-

Westernized societies (see Nestl boycott).

* The active suppression of pre-war Yugoslavian cultural

practices and common language in Croatia.

* The ongoing threat to the Inuit hunting culture in

Greenland by environmental groups such as Greenpeace, and

of the traditional Thule culture in Greenland by encroachment

of a cash-based economy.

* The forced use of French as the language of Occitania.

* The forced use of French and Spanish as languages of

Catalonia.

* The beating of Scottish and Welsh children for speaking

Scottish Gaelic and Welsh instead of English in schools in the

early 20th century. See the Welsh Not.



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* The use of US culture in marketing and advertising

worldwide

* Residential schools in Canada designed to assimilate First

Nations, Mtis and Inuit children into the predominate

European cultures of Canada (anglophone, francophone).

Hegemony

Hegemony (leadership) first denoted the dominance

(leadership) of a Greek city-state over other city-states, and

then denoted the dominance of one nation over others. The

political scientist Antonio Gramsci developed the formerconceptions to identify the dominance of one social class over

the other social classes in a society by means of cultural

hegemony. Moreover, a hegemony is the type of empire,

wherein, the imperial state controls the subordinate state with

power (the perception that it can enforce its political goals),

rather than with force (direct physical action to compel its

political goals), (cf. suzerainty).

In the field of international relations, the hegemon (leader)

dictates the politics of the subordinate states upon whom it

has hegemony via cultural imperialism the imposition of its

way of life, i.e. its language (as imperial lingua franca) and

bureaucracies (social, economic, educational, governing), to

make its dominance formal and, so, render as abstract its

foreign domination of the subordinate state; thus, power does

not rest in a given person, but in the way things are, yet, any

rebellion (social, political, economic, armed) is eliminated bythe local police and military, without the hegemons direct

intervention, e.g. the Spanish and the British empires, and the

united Germany (extant 18711945).



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Politically, hegemony is the predominance of one political unit

over other units in a political group a province within a

federation (Prussia in the Second Reich), one man in a

committee (Napoleon Bonaparte in the Consulate), and one

state in a confederation (France in the EU). Sociologically, ascultural hegemony, it denotes and explains the domination and

maintenance of power (either by a person or a group), and how

the hegemon class persuades the subordinated social

classes to accept and adopt the imposed external values, i.e.

bourgeois hegemony; per Gramsci, the hegemonic Imperial

State is a mixture of coercion and hegemony, distinguishable

as force and power. To wit, it is the social and political

power(s) derived from the populaces spontaneous consent

given because of the intellectual and moral authority thatgrant leadership to the "subalterns" of the Imperial State

thus, hegemony is exercised through power (coercion and

consent), rather than through force (arms). These constitute

the cultural hegemony its agents (the Imperial States

subalterns) are the press (mass communications media),

organized religion, the schools (educational curricula), and the

commercialized popular arts (cinema, music, et cetera)

imposed from above, that influence the citizens of the

subordinate state to accept the hegemons (foreign, external)values, thereby, maintaining the hegemonic status quo, so

that the empire can continue.

New Imperialism

New Imperialism refers to the colonial expansion adopted by

Europe's powers and, later, Japan and the United States,

during the 19th and early 20th centuries; approximately from

the Franco-Prussian War to World War I (c. 18701914). The



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period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what

has been termed "empire for empire's sake," aggressive

competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the

emergence in some colonizing countries of doctrines of racial

superiority which purported to explain the unfitness ofbackward peoples for self-government.

Background

The term imperialism was used from the third quarter of the

nineteenth century to describe various forms of political

control by a greater power over less powerful territories ornationalities, although analytically the phenomena which it

denotes may differ greatly from each other and from the

"New" imperialism.

A later usage developed in the early 20th century among

Marxists, who saw "imperialism" as the economic and political

dominance of "monopolistic finance capital" in the most

advanced countries and its acquisition and enforcementthrough the state of control of the means (and hence the

returns) of production in less developed regions. They

supported it as a necessary phase of human development.

Elements of both conceptions are present in the "New

imperialism" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But

along with the adoption of ultra-nationalist and racial

supremacist ideologies, the period saw a shift to pre-emptive

colonial expansion, fueled by the imposition of tariff barriers

aimed at excluding economic rivals from markets.

English writers have sometimes described elements of this

period as the "era of empire for empire's sake," "the great

adventure," and "the scramble for Africa." During this period,



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the advanced European nations conquered 20% of the Earth's

land area (nearly 23,000,000 km). Africa, Asia and the Pacific

Islands, the remaining world regions that had largely been

uncolonized by Europeans, became the primary targets of this

new phase of imperialist expansion; in the latter two regions,Japan and the United States joined the European powers in the

scramble for territory.

Rise of New Imperialism

The Rise of the New Imperialism overlaps with the Pax

Britannica period (1815-1870). The American Revolution andthe collapse of the Spanish empire in the New World in the

early 1810-20s, following the revolutions in the viceroyalties of

New Spain, New Granada, Peru and the Rio de la Plata ended

the first era of European empire. Especially in the United

Kingdom (UK), these revolutions helped show the deficiencies

of mercantilism, the doctrine of economic competition for

finite wealth which had supported earlier imperial expansion.

The 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws marked the adoption of free

trade by the UK. As the "workshop of the world", the UnitedKingdom was even supplying a large share of the

manufactured goods consumed by such nations as Germany,

France, Belgium and the United States. The Pax era also saw

the enforced opening of key markets to European, particularly

British, commerce. This activity followed the erosion of Pax

Britannica, during which British industrial and naval

supremacy underpinned an informal empire of free trade and

commercial hegemony.

During this period, between the 1815 Congress of Vienna

(after the defeat of Napoleonic France) and the end of the

Franco-Prussian War (1871), Britain reaped the benefits of

being the world's sole modern, industrial power. As the



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"workshop of the world," Britain could produce finished goods

so efficiently and cheaply that they could usually undersell

comparable, locally manufactured goods in foreign markets.

The erosion of British hegemony after the Franco-Prussian War

was occasioned by changes in the European and world

economies and in the continental balance of power following

the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, the balance of power

established by the Congress of Vienna. The establishment of

nation-states in Germany and Italy resolved territorial issues

that had kept potential rivals embroiled in internal affairs at

the heart of Europe (to Britain's advantage).

Economically, adding to the commercial competition of old

rivals like France were now the newly industrializing powers,

such as Germany and the United States. Needing external

markets for their manufactured goods, all sought ways to

challenge Britain's dominance in world trade the

consequence of its early industrialization.

This competition was sharpened by the Long Depression of

1873-1896, a prolonged period of price deflation punctuated

by severe business downturns, which added to pressure on

governments to promote home industry, leading to the

widespread abandonment of free trade among Europe's

powers (in Germany from 1879 and in France from 1881).

The resulting limitation of both domestic markets and export

opportunities led government and business leaders in Europe,

and later the U.S., to see the solution in sheltered overseas

markets united to the home country behind imperial tariff

barriers: new overseas colonies would provide export markets



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free of foreign competition, while supplying cheap raw

materials.

The revival of working-class militancy and emergence ofsocialist parties during the Depression decades led

conservative governments to view colonialism as a force for

national cohesion in support of the domestic status quo. Also,

in Italy, and to a lesser extent in Germany and Britain, tropical

empires in India and Burma were seen as outlets for what was

deemed a surplus home population.

Theories Of New Imperialism

Hobson's accumulation theory

The accumulation theory, conceived largely by Karl Kautsky

and J.A. Hobson, then popularized by Lenin, centers on theaccumulation of surplus capital during the Second Industrial

Revolution.

Both theorists linked the problem of shrinking continental

markets driving European capital overseas to an inequitable

distribution of wealth in industrial Europe. They contended

that the wages of workers did not represent enoughpurchasing power to absorb the vast amount of capital

accumulated during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Hobson, a British liberal writing at the time of the fierce

debate on imperialism during the Second Boer War, observed



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the spectacle of what is popularly known as the "Scramble for

Africa", and emphasized changes in European social structures

and attitudes as well as capital flow (though his emphasis on

the latter seems to have been the most influential and

provocative). His so-called accumulation theory suggested thatcapitalism suffered from under-consumption due to the rise of

monopoly capitalism and the resultant concentration of wealth

in fewer hands, which apparently gave rise to a misdistribution

of purchasing power. Logically, this argument is sound, given

the huge impoverished industrial working class - then often far

too poor to consume the goods produced by an industrialized

economy. His analysis of capital flight and the rise of

mammoth cartels later influenced Lenin in his Imperialism, the

Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) which has become a basisfor the modern neo-Marxist analysis of imperialism. Thus some

have argued that the New Imperialism was caused essentially

by a flight of foreign capital.

New Imperialism was one way of capturing new overseas

markets.

By the eve of World War I, Europe, for instance, representedthe largest share (27 %) of the global zones of investment,

followed by North America (24 %), Latin America (19 %), Asia

(16 %), Africa (9 %), and Oceania (5 %) for all industrial

powers. Britain, the forerunner of Europe's capitalist powers,

however, was clearly the chief world investor, though the

direction of its investments underwent a striking change,

becoming oriented less toward Europe, the United States, and

India, and more toward the rest of the Commonwealth and

Latin America. In non-industrial regions that lacked both theknowledge and the power to direct the capital flow, this

investment served to colonize rather than to develop them,

destroying native industries and creating dangerous political

and economic pressures which would, in time, produce the so-



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called "north/south divide." Dependency Theory, devised

largely by Latin American academics, draws on this inference.

Some have criticized J.A. Hobson's analysis of over-accumulation and under-consumption, arguing it does not

explain why less developed nations with little surplus capital,

such as Italy, participated in colonial expansion. Nor does it

fully explain the expansionism of the great powers of the next

century the United States and Russia, which were in fact,

net borrowers of foreign capital. Opponents of his

accumulation theory also point to many instances in which

foreign rulers needed and requested Western capital, such as

the hapless modernizer Khedive Ismail Pasha.

Since the "Scramble for Africa" was the predominant feature of

New Imperialism and formal empire, opponents of Hobson's

accumulation theory often point to frequent cases when

military and bureaucratic costs of occupation exceeded

financial returns. In Africa (exclusive of South Africa) the

amount of capital investment by Europeans was relatively

small before and after the 1880s, and the companies involved

in tropical African commerce exerted limited political

influence. First, this observation might detract from the pro-

imperialist arguments of Lopold II, Francesco Crispi, and Jules

Ferry, but Hobson argued against imperialism from a slightly

different standpoint. He concluded that finance was

manipulating events to its own profit, but often against

broader national interests. Second, any such statistics only

obscure the fact that African formal control of tropical Africahad strategic implications in an era of feasible inter-capitalist

competition, particularly for Britain, which was under intense

economic and thus political pressure to secure lucrative

markets such as India, China, and Latin America.



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Lenin's theory of monopoly capitalism

Lenin, like Kautsky in the 1900s, argued that capitalism

necessarily induced monopoly capitalism - which he also called

"imperialism" - in order to find new markets and resources,

representing the last and highest stage of capitalism. This

theory of necessary expansion of capitalism outside the

boundaries of nation-states - one of the foundations of

Leninism as a whole - was also shared by Rosa Luxemburg and

then by liberal philosopher Hannah Arendt. Since then,

however, Lenin's theory has been extended by Marxist

scholars to be a synonym of capitalistic international trade and

banking.

While Karl Marx never published a theory of imperialism, he

referred to colonialism in Das Kapital as an aspect of the

prehistory of the capitalist mode of production. In various

articles he also analyzed British colonial rule in Ireland and

India. Moreover, using the Hegelian dialectic, he predicted the

phenomenon of monopoly capitalism in The Poverty of

Philosophy (1847), hence the slogan "Workers of the world,unite!"). Lenin defined imperialism as "the highest stage of

capitalism" (the subtitle of his outline), the era in which

monopoly finance capital becomes dominant, forcing nations

and corporations to compete themselves increasingly for

control over resources and markets all over the world.

Marxist theories of imperialism, or related theories such as

dependency theory, focus on the economic relations between

countries (and within countries, as outlined below), rather

than the more formal political and/or military relationships.

Imperialism thus consists not necessarily in the direct control

of one country by another, but in the economic exploitation of

one region by another, or of a group by another. This Marxist



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usage contrasts with a popular conception of 'imperialism', as

directly controlled vast colonial or neocolonial empires.

Lenin held that imperialism was a stage of capitalist

development with five simultaneous features as outlined

below:

1) Concentration of production and capital has led to the

creation of national and multinational monopolies - not as

understood in liberal economics, but in terms of de facto

power over their enormous markets - while the "free

competition" remains the domain of increasingly localized

and/or 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 hasgrown 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.

[Following Marx's value theory, Lenin saw monopoly capital as

plagued by the law of the tendency of profit to fall, as the ratio

of constant capital to variable capital increases. In Marx's

theory only living labor or variable capital creates profit in the



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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) Industrial capital as the dominant form of capital has been

replaced by finance capital (repeating the main points of

Rudolf Hilferding's magnum opus, Finance Capital), with the

industrial capitalists being ever more reliant on finance capital

(provided by financial institutions).

3) The export of the aforementioned finance capital is

emphasized over the export of goods (even though the latterwould continue to exist);

4) The economic division of the world by multinational

enterprises, and the formation of international cartels; and

5) The political division of the world by the great powers, inwhich the export of finance capital by the advanced capitalist

industrial nations to their colonial possessions enables them to

exploit those colonies for their resources and investment

opportunities. This super exploitation of poorer countries

allows the advanced capitalist industrial nations to keep at

least some of their own workers content, by providing them

with slightly higher living standards.

The Soviet Union, which claimed to follow Leninism,

proclaimed itself the foremost enemy of imperialism and

supported many independence movements throughout the

Third World. However, at the same time, it asserted its

dominance over the countries of Eastern Europe. Some



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Marxists, including Maoists and those to the left of the

Trotskyite tradition, such as Tony Cliff, claim that the Soviet

Union was imperialist. The Maoists claim that this happened

after Khrushchev's seizure of power in 1956, while Cliff claims

it happened in the 1940s with Stalin's policies. Harry Magdoff'sAge of Imperialism is a 1954 discussion of Marxism and

imperialism. Globalization is generally viewed as the latest

incarnation of imperialism among Marxists.

World Systems theory

World-Systems theorist Immanuel Wallenstein addresses thesecounterarguments without degrading Hobson's underlying

inferences.

Wallensteins conception of imperialism as a part of a general,

gradual extension of capital investment from the "centre" of

the industrial countries to an overseas "periphery" coincides

with Hobson's. According to Wallenstein, "Mercantilism

became the major tool of (newly industrializing, increasinglycompetitive) semi-peripheral countries (i.e., Germany, France,

Italy, Belgium, etc.) seeking to become core countries."

Wallenstein hence perceives formal empire as performing a

function "analogous to that of the mercantilist drives of the

late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England and

France." Protectionism and formal empire were characteristics

of this era of neo-mercantilism; the major tools of "semi-

peripheral," newly industrialized states, such as Germany,

seeking to usurp Britain's position at the "core" of the global

capitalist system.

The expansion of the Industrial Revolution thus contributed to

the emergence of an era of aggressive national rivalry, leading



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to the late nineteenth century scramble for Africa and formal

empire. Hobson's theory is thus useful in explaining the role of

over-accumulation in overseas economic and colonial

expansionism while Wallenstein perhaps better explains the

dynamic of inter-capitalist geopolitical competition.

The interpretations of recent scholarship

Benjamin Disraeli and Queen Victoria

In this sense, contemporary imperial historian

Bernard Porter argues that formal imperialismfor Britain was a symptom and an effect of its

relative decline in the world, and not of

strength. Symbolic overtures, in fact, such as

Queen Victoria's grandiose title "Empress of

India", celebrated during the second

premiership of Benjamin Disraeli in the 1870s,

helped to obscure this fact. Joseph Chamberlain thus argued

that formal imperialism was necessary for Britain because of

the relative decline of the British share of the world's export

trade and the quick rise of German, American, and French

economic competition.

Porter, however, notes that Britain, "Struck with outmoded

physical plants and outmoded forms of business organization...

now felt the less favorable effects of being the first to

modernize." He contends that "a kind of vicious circle had beenset up, with domestic industry lagging because capital was

going elsewhere because industry was lagging." Unlike J.A.

Hobson, however, who links under-consumption to a

misdistribution of purchasing power, Porter argues that "the

best thing that Britain could have done to correct [its balance


Benjamin Disraeli andQueen Victoria


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of payments] would have been to make her export industry

more competitive improve her methods of manufacturing and

marketing in order to sell more abroad."

As mentioned, contemporary historians, such as Bernard

Porter, P.J. Cain, and A.G. Hopkins, do not downplay the

influence of financial interests of "the city" either, but contest

Hobson's conspiratorial overtones and "reductionisms."

Nevertheless, they often acted as repositories of the surplus

capital accumulated by a monopolistic system and they were

therefore the prime movers in the drive for imperial expansion,

their problem being to find fields for the investment of capital.

OIL IMPERIALISM

Oil imperialism theories assert that direct and indirect control

of world petroleum reserves is a root factor in current

international politics.

Control of oil

While economists and historians agree that access to and

control of the access of others to important resources has

throughout history been a factor in warfare and in diplomacy,

oil imperialism theorists generally tend to assert that control

of petroleum reserves has played an overriding role in

international politics since World War I. Most critics (and some

supporters) of the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq,

argue that oil imperialism was a major driving force behind

these conflicts. Some theories hold that access to oil defined

20th century empires and was the key to the ascendance of

the United States as the world's sole superpower and explain

how an undeveloped country like Russia was able to



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industrialize so quickly (see Economy of the Soviet Union).

Petrodollar theory states that the recent wars in Iraq are

partly motivated by the desire to keep the US dollar as the

international currency.

Criticism

Critics of oil imperialism theories suggest that because the

United States is the third largest oil producer, and that it has

historically been the leading oil producer in the world, the

United States would be unlikely to predicate its foreign policy

on the acquisition of oil with such an undue focus. They point

out that, even relative to its consumption rate, oil is not an

expensive commodity in the market.

SCIENTIFIC IMPERIALISM

Scientific imperialism is a term that appears to have been

coined by Dr. Ellis T. Powell when addressing the

Commonwealth Club of Canada on 8 September 1920. Though

he defined imperialism as "the sense of arbitrary and

capricious domination over the bodies and souls of men," yet

he used the term "scientific imperialism" to mean "the

subjection of all the developed and undeveloped powers of the

earth to the mind of man."

In modern parlance, however, scientific imperialism refers to

situations in which critics charge that science seems to act

imperiously, such as "the tendency to push a good scientificidea far beyond the domain in which it was originally

introduced, and often far beyond the domain in which it can

provide much illumination." (John Dupr, Against Scientific

Imperialism, 2006) Scientific imperialism can thus describe an

attitude towards knowledge in which the beliefs and methods



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of science are assumed to be superior to, and to take

precedence over, those of all other disciplines. "Devotees of

these approaches are inclined to claim that they are in

possession not just of one useful perspective on human

behavior, but of the key that will open doors to theunderstanding of ever wider areas of human behavior."

Scientific imperialism is also apparent in "those who believe

that the study of politics can and should be modeled on the

natural sciences, a position defended most forcibly in the

United States, and those who have dissented, viewing this

ambition as methodologically unjustified and ethically

undesirable."

CRITIQUE OF POWER

It has also been defined as the "pursuit of power through the

pursuit of knowledge," and its pejorative use arguably reflects

the frustration felt by some with "the limitations of reductive

scientism (scientific imperialism)." And "the myth that scienceis the model of truth and rationality still grips the mind of

much of our popular and scientific culture. Even though

philosophers of science over the past few decades have gutted

many of the claims of this scientific imperialism, many

thinkers, knee-jerk agnostics, and even judges persist in the

grip of this notion." In its more extreme forms, critics of

science even question whether we should "automatically

assume ... that successful scientific theories are true or

approximately true models of the world," and periodicallyexpress a desire to "dethrone science from an imperialistic

stance over philosophy and theology." Such extreme critics

also claim that maybe scientists harbor "unreal expectations

and mistaken assumptions, their hubris and their imperialism,"

in their desire to extend the methods and ideology of science



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into regions of human investigation for which its methods

might be unsuited, such as to religions and the humanities.

RELIGION OF INTELLECTUALS

Scientific imperialism, "the idea that all decisions, in principle,

can be made scientifically - has become, in effect, the religion

of the intellectuals," for it seems to reflect "a natural

tendency, when one has a successful scientific model, to

attempt to apply it to as many problems as possible. But it is

also in the nature of models that these extended applicationsare dangerous." Science appears most imperialistic when it

seeks domination over other disciplines and the subordination

of 'non-believers,' or those it perceives as being insufficiently

educated in scientific matters. It can thus involve some

zealotry, and perhaps a fundamentalist belief that science

alone stands supreme over all other modes of inquiry. In this it

may resemble cultural imperialism, as a rather rigid and

intolerant form of intellectual monotheism. If it acts

monopolistically then science does indeed seem rigid, ruthlessand intolerant.

MARGINALIZED

Advocates of this critical position may describe themselves as

marginalized and see their ideas described by scientists as

irrational, and of being fairly or unfairly labeled as New Agersor religious romantics. In the science belief system, critics

argue that those who have a tight adherence to the core

dogmas of science attract the greatest credibility, respect and

reverence. It is further argued that scientists extol the

exclusive virtues of the scientific paradigm over other modes



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of interpreting Nature, the world and human behavior. It

seems a paternalistic attitude that scientists alone belong to

an elite class of people who deal with matters of greatest

importance, and may belittle the intellectual powers of the

average citizen.

IN MEDICINE

Another meaning of this term is shown when it is claimed that

"poor people in developing countries are being exploited in

research for the benefit of patients in the developed world." In

such an example, then it is clear that, "the scientific

community has a responsibility to ensure that all scientific

research is conducted ethically." Another example lies in the

alleged misappropriation of indigenous drugs in poor countries

by drug companies in the developed world: "Ethno

pharmacology involves a series of sociopolitical, economic and

ethical dilemmas, at various levels...frequently host country

scientists, visiting scientists, and informants

disagree...research efforts are (often) perceived as scientific

imperialism; scientists are accused of stealing plant materialsand appropriating traditional plant knowledge for financial

profit and/or professional advancement. Many governments, as

well as indigenous societies are increasingly reluctant to

permit such research...historically neither native population

nor host countries have shared to a significant extent the

financial benefits from any drug that reaches the

market...unless these issues are amply discussed and fairly

resolved, medicinal plant research runs the risk of serving

ethically questionable purposes."



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ULTRA-IMPERIALISM (HYPER IMPERIALISM)

Ultra-imperialism, or occasionally hyper imperialism, is a

potential phase of capitalism described by Karl Kautsky.

Kautsky elucidated his theory in the September 1914 issue of

Die Neue Zeit. He described the current phase of capitalism as

imperialism. In Marxist theory, imperialism consists of

capitalist states super exploiting labor in agrarian regions in

order to increase both the imperialist nation's productivity and

their market. However, imperialism also required capitalist

states to introduce protectionist measures and to defend theirempires militarily. He believed that this was the ultimate cause

of World War I.

Kautsky noted that before the War, while industrial

accumulation had continued, exports had dropped, as a result

of a tendency of industry to expand out of proportion to

agriculture. He pointed out that growing nationalism in the

more industrially advanced colonies would necessitate a

continuation of the arms race after the War, and that if

happened, economic stagnation would worsen.

In Kautsky's view, the only one way in which capitalists would

be able to maintain the basic system, while avoiding this

stagnation, would be for the wealthiest nations to form a

"cartel", in the same manner as which banks had co-operated,agreeing to limit their competition and renounce their arms

race, in order to maintain their export markets and their

systems of super exploitation. In doing so, he postulated that

war and militarism were not essential features of capitalism,

and that a peaceful capitalism was possible.


Karl Kautsky


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Lenin disagreed with Kautsky's approach. In an introduction to

Nikolai Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy, written in

1916, he conceded that "in the abstract one can think of such a

phase. In practice, however, he who denies the sharp tasks of

to-day in the name of dreams about soft tasks of the future

becomes an opportunist."

Lenin developed Bukharin's theories of imperialism and his

own arguments formed the core of his work Imperialism: The

Highest Stage of Capitalism. He wrote that Kautsky's theory

supposed "the rule of finance capital lessens the unevennessand contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in

reality it increases them." He gives examples of disparities in

the international economy and discusses how they would

develop even under a system of ultra-imperialism. He asks,

under the prevailing system, "what means other than war

could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity

between the development of productive forces and the

accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of

colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on theother?"

Some Marxists have pointed out similarities between the co-

operation between the capitalist states during the Cold War

and ultra-imperialism. Martin Thomas of Workers Liberty

claims that this "since the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in

1989-91, that 'ultra-imperialism' has extended to cover almost

the whole globe", but that "rather than being a sharply

polarized world of industrial states on one side, agrarian

states on the other, with the industrial states joining together

to keep the agrarian states un-industrial by force, it is a very

unequal but multifarious system, with political independence

for the ex-colonies, rapidly-permuting new international



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divisions of labor, and many poorer states exporting mostly

manufactured goods."

Other commentators have pointed to similarities between

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's theory of Empire and

Kautsky's theory, although the authors themselves claim their

theory is founded in Leninism.

Opponents of the theory of ultra-imperialism argue that,

whatever similar forms may have existed during the Cold War,

since its end, inter-capitalist competition has tended to

increase, and that the nature of capitalism makes it impossible

for capitalists to make conscious decisions to avoid behavior ifin the short term it proves beneficial.

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM

Imperialism is defined as extending

one countries ideals and values over

another nation. A strong advocator ofimperialism was Teddy Roosevelt.

Imperialism greatly benefited the

United States in the early 1900s.

Imperialism acted upon less

developed countries in order to make

them successful and able to thrive.

Imperialism morally benefited both countries in that free

trade became possible, America gained land, and economic

development occurred. Free trade is trade between nations orcountries without a protective tariff. When annexing a country

it becomes possible to have this. America has importation laws

that state there is a fee that must be paid while sending

something into America. If a country can develop into part of

the United States then it is possible to override those tariffs.



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The sugar industry was overwhelming in Hawaii, but because

of the import tariff, large fees had to be paid in order to ship

it. When the annexation of Hawaii occurred, it was evident that

both countries would benefit from Hawaiis natural resources.

America could now greatly benefit from the resource that onceseemed inaccessible. Hawaiis main exporter, Samuel Dole

made millions of dollars when the tariff was waived because of

the annexation. Combining the nations was an intelligent and

beneficiary action taken by President McKinley. Expansion is a

major part of Americas history. People always wanted to

discover new land or expand on what they already had.

Annexation of nations helped to add to that expansion in which

people strived for. Having more land meant having more room

for immigrants, or for new opportunities. Businesses beingable to expand meant more profit and income for the business

owner. Also a major benefit of annexation was the Panama

Canal. This giant canal made it possible for ships to sail

through the country, instead of having to go all the way

around Latin America. It quickened jobs and tasks that needed

to be completed in Latin America. The United States made

canal benefited many countries if not all, for it made a speedy

process of transportation. Economic Development of Latin

American Countries was limited. Annexation of countries madeit possible for America to instate ideas of democracy. America

advocates for freedom in many aspects. Granting

independence and freedom would cure domestic unrest.

Domestic unrest causes a lack in growth for a country. Helping

poorer countries develop economically would in turn benefit

the United States. It gave America more territory to instill

democratic views and values. America was prospering, which

with the annexation of a nation would cause them to receive

that money back in some other form. It became a situation in

which both countries would benefit. Overall annexation and

imperialism cannot be seen as morally wrong, but morally

sound. It stopped tension within countries by promoting

freedom and independence. With America gaining land and

free trade between once foreign nations countries were



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coming out with more benefits than drawbacks. Countries in

the early 1900s needed guidance and support from larger

more developed nations, which is exactly what America helped

to do.

IMPERIALISM IN ASIA

Imperialism in Asia traces its roots back to the late fifteenth

century with a series of voyages that sought a sea passage to

India in the hope of establishing direct trade between Europe

and Asia in spices. Before 1500 European economies were

largely self-sufficient, only supplemented by minor trade with

Asia and Africa. Within the next century, however, European

and Asian economies were slowly becoming integrated through

the rise of new global trade routes; and the early thrust of

European political power, commerce, and culture in Asia gave

rise to a growing trade in lucrative commoditiesa key

development in the rise of today's modern world free market

economy.

In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese established a

monopoly over trade between Asia and Europe by managing to

prevent rival powers from using the water routes between

Europe and the Indian Ocean. However, with the rise of the

rival Dutch East India Company, Portuguese influence in Asia

was gradually eclipsed. Dutch forces first established

independent bases in the East (most significantly Batavia, theheavily fortified headquarters of the Dutch East India

Company) and then between 1640 and 1660 wrestled Malacca,

Ceylon, some southern Indian ports, and the lucrative Japan

trade from the Portuguese. Later, the English and the French

established settlements in India and established a trade with



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China and their own acquisitions would gradually surpass

those of the Dutch. Following the end of the Seven Years' War

in 1763, the British eliminated French influence in India and

established the British East India Company as the most

important political force on the Indian Subcontinent.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the mid-to-late nineteenth

century, demand for oriental goods remained the driving force

behind European imperialism, and (with the important

exception of British East India Company rule in India) the

European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading

stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade.

Industrialization, however, dramatically increased Europeandemand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long

Depression of the 1870s provoked a scramble for new markets

for European industrial products and financial services in

Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia.

This scramble coincided with a new era in global colonial

expansion known as "the New Imperialism," which saw a shift

in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control

of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of

their mother countries. Between the 1870s and the beginning

of World War I in 1914, the United Kingdom, France, and the

Netherlands the established colonial powers in Asia added

to their empires vast expanses of territory in the Middle East,

the Indian Subcontinent, and South East Asia. In the same

period, the Empire of Japan, following the Meiji Restoration;

the German Empire, following the end of the Franco-Prussian

War in 1871; Tsarist Russia; and the United States, following

the Spanish-American War in 1898, quickly emerged as newimperial powers in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area.

In Asia, World War I and World War II were played out as

struggles among several key imperial powersconflicts

involving the European powers along with Russia and the



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rising American and Japanese powers. None of the colonial

powers, however, possessed the resources to withstand the

strains of both world wars and maintain their direct rule in

Asia. Although nationalist movements throughout the colonial

world led to the political independence of nearly all of theAsia's remaining colonies, decolonization was intercepted by

the Cold War; and South East Asia, South Asia, the Middle

East, and East Asia remained embedded in a world economic,

financial, and military system in which the great powers

compete to extend their influence. However, the rapid post-

war economic development of the East Asian Tigers and the

People's Republic of China, along with the collapse of the

Soviet Union, have loosened European and North American

influence in Asia, generating speculation today about thepossible re-emergence of China and Japan as regional powers.

IMPERIALISM IN CHINA

Qing territorial expansion

During the eighteenth century, the Qing Dynasty government

expanded its western borders to include areas such as Xinjiang

and Tibet[citation needed] that had historically been under

direct Chinese control during the Han, Tang, and Yuan periods.

The name Xinjiang itself is Chinese for new territory. During

the Han and Tang dynasties it was known as "protectorate of

the west". The Qing expanded into Taiwan.

Using imperialism to describe Qing expansion

The process by which this occurred has been portrayed in

current Chinese nationalist historiography as a process of

national unification. Paradoxically Chinese nationalists,



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particularly those of the nineteenth century, also regarded

Qing expansion as imperialist and colonial when it came the

Qing rule of Han Chinese areas, but not when it came to ruling

outlying regions.

Other alternative readings of history particularly by Tibetan,

Xinjiang, and Taiwanese advocates of independence have

portrayed Qing expansion as Chinese imperialism which is not

fundamentally different from European imperialism. Also some

Western studies of the Qing dynasty have used the concept of

colonialism as a framework to describe the expansion of the

Qing into neighboring areas such as Taiwan. The use of the

term colonialism or imperialism to describe or not describe

Qing territory expansion is highly controversial as it serves toeither legitimize or delegitimize claims of current governments

to rule these territories.

The process of expansion

The ability of Qing China to project power into Central Asia

came about because of two changes, one social and one

technological. The social change was that under the Qingdynasty, from 1642, China came under the control of the

Manchus who organized their military forces around cavalry

which was more suited for power projection than traditional

Chinese infantry. The technological change was advances in

the cannon and artillery which negated the military advantage

that the people of the Steppe had with their cavalry (although

cannons and firearms were used in China centuries beforehand

to combat similar threats, see Technology of Song Dynasty).

Qing actions in Central Asia were aided by the preference of

most local rulers (particularly in Tibet) for the relative light

touch of Manchu control over the heavy-handedness of Russia

or the British. The Manchus-Jurchens (originally from the



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southern region of current-day Manchuria and the northern

region of the Korean Peninsula) ruled China with the support

of some people from Mongolia, Korea, Tibet and Xinjiang. The

Manchu ruling family was a supporter of Tibetan Buddhism and

so many of the ruling groups were linked by religion. Chinamost of the time had little ambitions to conquer or establish

colonies. There were exceptions to this, such as the ancient

Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) establishing control over

northern Vietnam, northern Korea, and the Tarim Basin of

Central Asia. The short-lived Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD) had

high imperial aims, reinvading Annam (northern Vietnam) and

attacking Champa (southern Vietnam), while they also

attempted to conquer Korea, which failed (see Goguryeo-Sui

Wars). The later Tang Dynasty (618-907) aided the Korean Sill

Documents

Imperialism 2003