.</span></p><hr><details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><ahref="/garden/leftism/index.md">Leftism</a><ahref="/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md">My Political Beliefs</a></details><p>Imperialism refers to how, after all the survivable land in the world was claimed by various countries (as part of colonialism), a country - or empire - must spread its influence over new territory at cost of existing influences over that territory. Typically this has meant land being transferred, either militarily or diplomatically.</p><h2id="imperialism-and-capitalism"tabindex="-1">Imperialism and Capitalism <aclass="header-anchor"href="#imperialism-and-capitalism"aria-label="Permalink to "Imperialism and Capitalism""></a></h2><p>Lenin wrote an influential pamphlet over his interpretation of imperialism, called "<ahref="https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism</a>". He argued imperialism was inextricably linked with capitalism, and that the driving force of imperialism was corporations gaining control over natural resources to use for profit, and to improve their position relative to opposing powers. An imperialist war, such as the ones the US has fought in the Middle East, serve both the interests of US oil companies as well as the US itself for its position relative to other imperialist powers. This view has been supported by modern leftist scholars like Michael Parenti in his book <ahref="https://www.michael-parenti.org/book-the-face-of-imperialism"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">Face of Imperialism: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World</a>.</p><p>In effect, imperialism has been used to delay resolving the contradiction between the need to expand and the physical limits of the globe. This contradiction cannot be fully resolved under a capitalist system, which requires the need to expand infinitely. Therefore, fighting imperialism means fighting capitalism. Removing power from corporations and banks largely nullifies the reasons for imperialism and is the best path towards global peace.</p><h2id="us-imperialism"tabindex="-1">US Imperialism <aclass="header-anchor"href="#us-imperialism"aria-label="Permalink to "US Imperialism""></a></h2><p>The size of the US empire is not obvious just by looking at a map of the world, due to its reliance on economic influence and soft power. The US also imperializes through its remaining colonies, proxy wars, and foreign military bases. Second thought has a good introductory video on how significant some of those influences are in <ahref="https://youtu.be/NpjDyhGyjNk"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">How The US Took Over The World</a>.</p><p>A lot of these conflicts abroad are done in the open, such as the conflicts part of the war on terror. In this case the government needs to justify to its citizens going to war, which you'll typically see happen regardless of who's in charge. This is a process called manufactured consent, as described by Herman and Chomsky in <ahref="https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media</a>, although it is not perfect and the US has a history of anti-war protest movements. The vietnam war was our first televised war and had anti war protests even escalate into <ahref="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/anti-war-protests-of-the-1960s-70s"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">riots</a>. Today through social media the impact of war is more accessible than ever before, and the Israel-Palestine conflict has had one of the largest anti-war movements yet, although still <ahref="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gaza-war-vietnam-protests.html"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">not as large as Vietnam</a>.</p><p>While there are several imperialist powers in the world, the US is a particularly influential one that I, as an American citizen, have the most personal interest in stopping.
