pages/site/garden/imperialism/index.md

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title: "Imperialism"
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<h1 class="p-name">Imperialism</h1>
<p>770 words, ~4 minute read. <span v-html="data[`site/${pageData.page.value.relativePath}`]" /></p>
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<details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><a href="/garden/leftism/index.md">Leftism</a><a href="/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md">My Political Beliefs</a></details>

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.

## Imperialism and Capitalism

Lenin wrote an influential pamphlet over his interpretation of imperialism, called "[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/)". 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 [Face of Imperialism: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World](https://www.michael-parenti.org/book-the-face-of-imperialism).

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.

## US Imperialism

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 [How The US Took Over The World](https://youtu.be/NpjDyhGyjNk).

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 [Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media](https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499), 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 [riots](https://www.whitehousehistory.org/anti-war-protests-of-the-1960s-70s). 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 [not as large as Vietnam](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gaza-war-vietnam-protests.html).

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. I believe if the US moved towards socialism the overall influence of capitalism in the world would diminish so thoroughly that it would only further decline into non-existence. This would affect not only the prosperity of the world but save many lives as well: Western imperialism has caused 50-55 million deaths since WW2 as claimed by Andre Vltchek in [On western terror](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p6wv), and US-backed conflicts show no sign of stopping so long as capitalist interests remain.

## Impact of Imperialism on the Development of the Global South

The global south refers to a collection of countries that are under-developed compared to the "global north", and have historically been victims of colonialism and imperialism. Today, the global south makes up 90% of global labor but only receives 21% of globally produced value, according to Jason Hickel et al in [Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y). Jason has previously calculated that the global north extracted $242 trillion in value from the global south between 1990 and 2015 alone, despite only returning 1/30th of that in the form of foreign aid, in [Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X).

It's worth noting that Hickel is discussing all of the global north, not just the US, but US corporations make heavy use of exploitation by underpaying workers without any form of representation for the exploited or assistance in modernizing these countries ("catching up" developmentally). They allow corporations to act with essentially impunity, not enforcing any form of ethics or ensuring the development of the countries they're getting labor and resources from isn't stagnant. Earth Rights International [reported](https://earthrights.org/media_release/scotus-rules-that-u-s-corporations-can-profit-from-child-slavery-abroad/) on how Nestle and Cargill were sued for using child slavery in West Africa and after 15 years of legal process finally decided the US-based corporations were not liable for these human rights violations.

In contrast to the US, China has the Belt and Road Initiative started in 2013 where the state itself will lend money to improve the infrastructure development of these countries (and some in the global north as well), and allow for fully free trade (no tariffs) from the particularly underdeveloped. It faced initial backlash, which China responded to by improving their reporting standards and transparency with the countries they've signed contracts with, as described in [China’s response to Belt and Road backlash](https://eastasiaforum.org/2018/12/15/chinas-response-to-belt-and-road-backlash/). The initiative has continued to expand since then, and now has contracts with around 150 countries as listed by the Green Finance & Development Center in [Countries of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)](https://greenfdc.org/countries-of-the-belt-and-road-initiative-bri/), and accounts for around 20 trillion USD of trade, as reported by China in 2023 in a document called [Vision and Actions for High-Quality Belt and Road Cooperation: Brighter Prospects for the Next Decade](https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202311/24/content_WS65600f67c6d0868f4e8e1936.html) (cited via an English summary). The BRI has remained controversial within the west, but sentiment seems negative overall. Since 2020 various western publications have labeled the program "debt-trap diplomacy". There are some genuine concerns - China's reluctance to forgive debt and a lack of oversight on how the lent funds are used top amongst them -  but I believe they're being exaggerated due to western's biases towards capitalist interests and general sinophobia. I'd link a specific article but there are so many that I'll actually just recommend looking through the wikipedia article for the [Belt and Road Initiative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative) which includes various articles from a lot of sources both in favor of and in opposition to the initiative. It has literally hundreds of citations, one of the most well-cited articles I've seen. I get the overall impression that the BRI is arguably more cooperative than exploitative in nature compared to the US strategy, and the countries themselves seem to view the initiative favorably, considering 3/4 of all UN recognized countries are already part of the initiative, with very few choosing not to renew contracts.

## Further Reading

Jason Hickel made a very digestible explanation over the importance of liberating Palestine in the fight against imperialism, which was clipped into [Why a Liberated Palestine Threatens Global Capitalism](https://youtu.be/6dBy4-6pn1M).