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Definition
Reasons
Critique
Reasons-
Economic
Prestige, power
Ideology
Religion
Geographical suzerainty
Liberal non-marxist
Radical Marxists
Post colonial
Neo imperialism
Critique: inital conditions approach, liberal-radical approach, colonialism as social formation approach
Introduction:
Imperialism and Colonialism are two terms that has been used interchangeably,
tough to distinguish between the two. For example, British control of India has
(from INGNOU)
political, and cultural relationship between states, which is very often expressed
oppression and exploitation of the weak in the hands of the powerful. The word ‘imperial’ is derived from the Latin word; imperium which means ‘command’. In
people over others in ways that benefit the former usually at the expense of the
controlling power to those under its domination. He traced imperialism from its
classic roots in Greek and Roman empires. He believed that domination and
is derived not only from the traditional understanding of imperialism (dating back
to the Greek and Roman Empires) but it is also associated with the influence of
mercantile interests, along with the rise of nation-state and the spread of
European power overseas to Africa and Latin America {Chilcote, 1981: 4}. For
example, British Empire and Russian Tsarist regime had established its control
over large parts of Asia-Africa and central Asia, respectively. In other words,
other states. If one is going by the literal meaning, colonialism has different
However, looking from etymological point of view, the term ‘colony’ originated
from the Latin word ‘colonus’, meaning ‘farmer’. This simply means that
However, the above meaning of the term colonialism does not explain some
specific cases such as British control over India and different European powers’
control over China during the last century. Hence, the term colonialism needed to
acquire a more political meaning than the description above proposed. It became
territory where a dominant power has established its political and economic
control through either explicit use of force (as in case of India), or tacitly
The indirect
power uses force with a view to establish control over political institutions of the
between the two. In case of India, the suppression of the rebellion of 1857 by
brutal force used by the British denoted a change in the relationship. The British
had openly shed the disguise of being mere traders or revenue – seekers.
Etymologically speaking, the word imperialism is associated with Empire in the sense that this entails the idea of extension of a country’s power through political annexation of
territories of other countries.
Colonialism is an offshoot of imperialism and is more specific, in its being, as the Oxford dictionary defines it, as a “policy or practice of acquiring political control over another
country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
The "taproot of imperialism" is not in nationalist pride, but in capitalist oligarchy; and, as a form of economic organization, imperialismis unnecessary and immoral, the result of
the mis-distribution of wealth in a capitalist society. That dysfunction of political economycreated the socio-cultural desire to extend the national markets into foreign lands, in
search of profits greater than those available in the Mother Country.
J. A. Hobson said that imperialism was an economic, political, and cultural practice common to nations with a capitalist economic system. Because of its innate productive
capacity for generating profits, capitalism did not functionally require a large-scale, large-term, and costly socio-economic enterprise such as imperialism. A capitalist society
could avoid resorting to imperialism through the radical re-distribution of the national economic resources among the society,
kind. Profit was quite simply the result of scarcity and distance.
It was made from the huge difference between the price paid for,
say, pepper in the spice islands and the price it fetched in Europe,
a difference that dwarfed the costs of the venture.
own what Karl Marx called ‘the means of production’, and those
Markets, like merchants, are nothing new, but they are central to a
are linked only through the markets where goods and services are
This applies not only to goods and services but also to labour,
money, and capital. The wage, that is the price, for labour is
labour and workers compete for jobs. Money itself is bought and
Characteristics of cap
- capital importance
- profiteering
-wage labour
- economic competitiveness
Forms of cap
-mercantile cap:
kind. Profifit was quite simply the result of scarcity and distance.
It was made from the huge difference between the price paid for,
say, pepper in the spice islands and the price it fetched in Europe,
many to enter it. A glut of pepper eventually forced the East India
as indigo.
pay for the spices, with munitions, and with food and drink for
pay for them. In exchange the state, always short of money, gained
free market capitalism it clearly was not. The secret of making high
-industrial cap
industry.
three mills and had established itself as the leading spinner of fifine
cotton in Manchester, the global metropolis of cotton spinning. There were already 344 cotton mills by 1819
1802 to around 1,500 by the 1830s. Much of this was cheap child
labour and at times nearly half those employed were under the age
of 16.
The
their own and it was wage labour that was central to the making of
profifit. The wage bill was the employer’s main cost and became the
focus of the conflflict between the owners of capital and, as Karl Marx
-financial cap
Hilferding highlights the fact that industrial capitalism has been replaced by financial capitalism. Following this transformation, the industrial liberal bourgeoisie, favourable, at
least initially, to the free market and to the suppression of feudal restrictions, has become, in the course of time, financial imperialistic bourgeoisie, organically operating within
the structure of the State.
State (political power) and Finance (economic power) become eventually the two faces of the same coin.
The term “finance capital” comes from Rudolf Hilferding, the Austro-German Marxist theoretician. He was categorizing an increasing concentration and centralization of capital
in large corporations, cartels, trusts, and banks.1 For Hilferding, the earlier competitive “liberal capitalism,” opposed to intervention by the mercantilist state, was transformed at
the turn of the century into monopolistic “finance capital” which was integrated into a “centralized and privilege-dispensing state.” He thought that flows of investment capital
served to integrate the nascent global economy, which was operating predominantly under the control of the City of London, then the leading power center. Hilferding saw
finance capital engaged in vigorous expansion, constantly searching for new spheres of investment and markets.
In Finance Capital Hilferding suggests that, in the early stages of capitalist development, banks engage in short-term lending for “circulation” purposes, while concerning
themselves with their liquidity. As capitalist development proceeds, banks lend longer-term for “investment” purposes, and their concern shifts to securing their solvency.
Consequently, banks and industrial enterprises become amalgamated into “finance capital,” developing mutual “commitment” relations, and giving a bank-based character to
the financial system.
Ma’am
Acc to hobson, imperialism was a historically determined event: the transformation of nationalism which has dominated the international arena for more than a century into a
general tendency of states to expand beyond their national boundaries.
One used by those who desired to keep British settlements under imperial control rather than allying them to become independent states and the other associated with
expansionism and control of uncivilised parts of the world.
Reasons:
Economic
Prestige, power
Ideology
Religion
Geographical suzerainty
Theories:
and one main secondary reason. The primary reason was the tremendous uprisings of oppressed
people‟s in the Third World against open colonialism. The world‟s peoples just would not stand
for traditional colonialism any more. The secondary reason is that the United States—which was
at the same time developing as a superpower and lacking a huge colonial empire itself—for its
own ideological reasons preferred a more hidden form of exploitation and control of other
countries and would no longer accept the exclusive political and economic control of large parts
of the world by its weakened European competitors. The U.S. found it better to pretend to be in
favor of “independence” and “democracy” in order to gain entrance into the former European
colonies itself.
Liberal critique