- Imperialism, its character, means and ends has changed
over time and place. Historically, western imperialism, has taken the form
of tributary, mercantile, industrial, financial and in the contemporary
period, a unique 'militarist-barbaric' form of empire building. Within
each 'period', elements of past and future forms of imperial domination
and exploitation 'co-exist' with the dominant mode. For example , in the
ancient Greek and Roman empires, commercial and trade privileges complemented
the extraction of tributary payments. Mercantile imperialism, was preceded
and accompanied initially by the plunder of wealth and the extraction of
tribute, sometimes referred to as "primitive accumulation", where
political and military power decimated the local population and forcibly
removed and transferred wealth to the imperial capitals. As imperial commercial
ascendancy was consolidated, manufacturing capital increasingly emerged
as a co-participant; backed by imperial state policies manufacturing products
destroyed local national manufacturers gaining control over local markets.
Modern industrial driven imperialism, combined production and commerce,
both complemented and supported by financial capital and its auxiliaries,
insurance, transport and other sources of "invisible earnings".
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- Under pressure from nationalist and socialist anti-imperialist
movements and regimes, colonial structured empires gave way to new nationalist
regimes. Some of which restructured their economies, diversifying their
productive systems and trading partners. In some cases they imposed protective
barriers to promote industrialization. Industrial-driven imperialism,
at first opposed these nationalist regimes and collaborated with local
satraps to depose industrial oriented nationalist leaders. Their goal
was to retain or restore the "colonial division of labor"
primary production exchanged for finished goods. However, by the last
third of the 20th century, industrial driven empire building, began a process
of adaptation, "jumping over tariff walls", investing in elementary
forms of 'production' and in labor intensive consumer products. Imperial
manufacturers contracted assembly plants organized around light consumer
goods (textiles, shoes, electronics).
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- Basic changes in the political, social and economic
structures of both the imperial and former colonial countries, however,
led to divergent imperial paths to empire-building and as a consequence
contrasting development performances in both regions.
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- Anglo-American financial capital gained ascendancy over
industrial, investing heavily in highly speculative IT, bio-tech, real
estate and financial instruments. Germany and Japanese empire builders
relied on upgrading export-industries to secure overseas markets. As a
result they increased market shares, especially among the emerging industrializing
countries of Southern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Some former colonial
and semi-colonial countries also moved toward higher forms of industrial
production, developing high tech industries, producing capital and intermediate
as well as consumer goods and challenging western imperial hegemony in
their proximity.
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- By the early 1990's a basic shift in the nature of imperial
power took place. This led to a profound divergence between past and present
imperialist policies and among established and emerging expansionist regimes.
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- Past and Present Economic Imperialism
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- Modern industrial-driven empire building (MIE) is built
around securing raw materials, exploiting cheap labor and increasing market
shares. This is accomplished by collaborating with pliant rulers, offering
them economic aid and political recognition on terms surpassing those of
their imperial competitors. This is the path followed by China. MIE eschews
any attempt to gain territorial possessions, either in the form of military
bases or in occupying "advisory" positions in the core institutions
of the coercive apparatus. Instead, MIEs' seek to maximize control via
investments leading to direct ownership or 'association' with state and/or
private officials in strategic economic sectors. MIEs' utilize economic
incentives in the way of economic grants and low interest concessionary
loans. They offer to build large scale long term infrastructure projects-railroads,
airfields, ports and highways. These projects have a double purpose of
facilitating the extraction of wealth and opening markets for exports.
MIEs also improve transport networks for local producers to gain political
allies. In other words MIEs like China and India largely depend on market
power to expand and fight off competitors. Their strategy is to create
"economic dependencies" for long term economic benefits.
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- In contrast imperial barbarism grows out of an earlier
phase of economic imperialism which combined the initial use of violence
to secure economic privileges followed by economic control over lucrative
resources.
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- Historically, economic imperialism (EI) resorted to
military intervention to overthrow anti-imperialist regimes and secure
collaborator political clients. Subsequently, EI frequently established
military bases and training and advisory missions to repress resistance
movements and to secure a local military officialdom responsive to the
imperial power. The purpose was to secure economic resources and a docile
labor force, in order to maximize economic returns.
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- In other words, in this 'traditional' path to economic
empire building the military was subordinated to maximizing economic exploitation.
Imperial power sought to preserve the post colonial state apparatus and
professional cadre but to harness them to the new imperial economic order.
EI sought to preserve the elite to maintain law and order as the basic
foundation for restructuring the economy. The goal was to secure policies
to suit the economic needs of the private corporations and banks of the
imperial system. The prime tactic of the imperial institutions was to
designate western educated professionals to design policies which maximized
private earning. These policies included the privatization of all strategic
economic sectors; the demolition of all protective measures ("opening
markets") favoring local producers; the implementation of regressive
taxes on local consumers, workers and enterprises while lowering or eliminating
taxes and controls over imperial firms; the elimination of protective labor
legislation and outlawing of independent class organizations.
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- In its heyday western economic imperialism led to the
massive transfer of profits, interest, royalties and ill begotten wealth
of the native elite from the post-colonial countries to the imperial centers.
As befits post-colonial imperialism the cost of administrating these imperial
dependencies was borne by the local workers, farmers and employees.
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- While contemporary and historic economic imperialism
have many similarities, there are a few crucial differences. For example
China, the leading example of a contemporary economic imperialism, has
not established its "economic beach heads" via military intervention
or coups, hence it does not possess 'military bases' nor a powerful militarist
caste competing with its entrepreneurial class in shaping foreign policy.
In contrast traditional Western economic imperialism contained the seeds
for the rise of a powerful militarist caste capable, under certain circumstance,
of affirming their supremacy in shaping the policies and priorities of
empire building.
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- This is exactly what has transpired over the past twenty
years, especially with regard to US empire building.
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- The Rise and Consolidation of Imperial Barbarism
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- The dual processes of military intervention and economic
exploitation which characterized traditional Western imperialism gradually
shifted toward a dominant highly militarized variant of imperialism. Economic
interests, both in terms of economic costs and benefits and global market
shares were sacrificed in the pursuit of military domination.
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- The demise of the USSR and the virtual reduction of
Russia to the status of a broken state, weakened states allied to it.
They were "opened" to Western economic penetration and became
vulnerable to Western military attack.
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- President Bush (senior) perceived the demise of the
USSR as a 'historic opportunity' to unilaterally impose a unipolar world.
According to this new doctrine the US would reign supreme globally and
regionally. Projections of US military power would now operate unhindered
by any nuclear deterrence. However, Bush (senior) was deeply embedded
in the US petroleum industry. Thus he sought to strike a balance between
military supremacy and economic expansion. Hence the first Iraq war 1990-91
resulted in the military destruction of Saddam Hussein's military forces,
but without the occupation of the entire country nor the destruction of
civil society, economic infrastructure and oil refineries. Bush (senior)
represented an uneasy balance between two sets of powerful interests: on
the one hand, petroleum corporations eager to access the state owned oil
fields and on the other the increasingly powerful militarist zionist power
configuration within and outside of his regime. The result was an imperial
policy aimed at weakening Saddam as a threat to US clients in the Gulf
but without ousting him from power. The fact that he remained in office
and continued his support for the Palestinian struggle against the Jewish
state's colonial occupation profoundly irritated Israel and its zionist
agents in the US.
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- With the election of William Clinton, the 'balance'
between economic and military imperialism shifted dramatically in favor
of the latter. Under Clinton, zealous zionist were appointed to many of
the strategic foreign policy posts in the Administration. This ensured
the sustained bombing of Iraq, wrecking its infrastructure. This barbaric
turn was complemented by an economic boycott to destroy the country's economy
and not merely "weaken" Saddam. Equally important, the Clinton
regime fully embraced and promoted the ascendancy of finance capital by
appointing notorious Wall Streeters (Rubin, Summers, Greenspan et al.)
to key positions, weakening the relative power of oil, gas and industrial
manufacturers as the driving forces of foreign policy. Clinton set in
motion the political 'agents' of a highly militarized imperialism, committed
to destroying a country in order to dominate it
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- The ascent of Bush (junior) extended and deepened the
role of the militarist-zionist personnel in government. The self-induced
explosions which collapsed the World Trade Towers in New York served as
a pretext to precipitate the launch of imperial barbarism and spelled the
eclipse of economic imperialism.
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- While US empire building converted to militarism, China
accelerated its turn toward economic imperialism. Their foreign policy
was directed toward securing raw materials via trade, direct investments
and joint ventures. It gained influence via heavy investments in infrastructure,
a kind of developmental imperialism, stimulating growth for itself and
the "host" country. In this new historic context of global competition
between an emerging market driven empire and an atavistic militarist imperial
state, the former gained enormous economic profits at virtually no military
or administrative cost while the latter emptied its treasury to secure
ephemeral military conquests.
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- The conversion from economic to militarist imperialism
was largely the result of the pervasive and 'deep' influence of policymakers
of zionist persuasion. Zionist policymakers combined modern technical
skills with primitive tribal loyalties. Their singular pursuit of Israel's
dominance in the Middle East led them to orchestrate a series of wars,
clandestine operations and economic boycotts crippling the US economy and
weakening the economic bases of empire building.
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- Militarist driven empire building in the present post-colonial
global context led inevitably to destructive invasions of relatively stable
and functioning nation-states, with strong national loyalties. Destructive
wars turned the colonial occupation into prolonged conflicts with resistance
movements linked to the general population. Henceforth, the logic and
practice of militarist imperialism led directly to widespread and long-term
barbarism-the adoption of the Israeli model of colonial terrorism targeting
an entire population. This was not a coincidence. Israel's zionist zealots
in Washington "drank deeply" from the cesspool of Israeli totalitarian
practices, including mass terror, housing demolitions, land seizures, overseas
special force assassination teams, systematic mass arrests and torture.
These and other barbaric practices, condemned by human rights organizations
the world over, (including those in Israel), became routine practices of
US barbaric imperialism.
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- The Means and Goals of Imperial Barbarism
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- The organizing principle of imperial barbarism is the
idea of total war. Total in the sense that (1) all weapons of mass destruction
are applied; (2) the whole society is targeted; (3) the entire civil and
military apparatus of the state is dismantled and replaced by colonial
officials, paid mercenaries and unscrupulous and corrupt satraps. The
entire modern professional class is targeted as expressions of the modern
national-state and replaced by retrograde religious-ethnic clans and gangs,
susceptible to bribes and booty-shares. All existing modern civil society
organizations, are pulverized and replaced by crony-plunderers linked to
the colonial regime. The entire economy is disarticulated as elementary
infrastructure including water, electricity, gas, roads and sewage systems
are bombed along with factories, offices, cultural sites, farms and markets.
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- The Israeli argument of "dual use" targets
serves the militarist policymakers as a justification for destroying the
bases of a modern civilization. Massive unemployment, population displacement
and the return to primitive exchanges characteristic of pre-modern societies
define the "social structure". Educational and health conditions
deteriorate and in some cases become non-existent. Curable diseases plague
the population and infant deformities result from depleted uranium, the
pre-eminent weapon of choice of imperial barbarism.
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- In summary the ascendancy of barbarous imperialism leads
to the eclipse of economic exploitation. The empire depletes its treasury
to conquer, destroy and occupy. Even the residual economy is exploited
by 'others': traders and manufacturers from non-belligerent adjoining
states. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan that includes Iran, Turkey,
China and India.
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- The evanescent goal of barbarous imperialism is total
military control, based on the prevention of any economic and social rebirth
which might lead to a revival of secular anti-imperialism rooted in a modern
republic. The goal of securing a colony ruled by cronies, satraps and
ethno-religious warlords willing givers of military bases and permission
to intervene is central to the entire concept of military driven
empire building. The erasure of the historical memory of a modern independent
secular nation-state and the accompanying national heritage becomes of
singular importance to the barbarous empire. This task is assigned to
the academic prostitutes and related publicists who commute between Tel
Aviv, the Pentagon, Ivy league universities and Middle East propaganda
mills in Washington.
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- Results and Perspectives
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- Clearly imperial barbarism (as a social system) is the
most retrograde and destructive enemy of modern civilized life. Unlike
economic imperialism it does not exploit labor and resources, it destroys
the means of production, kills workers, farmers and undermines modern life.
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- Economic imperialism is clearly more beneficial to the
private corporations; but it also potentially lays the bases for its transformation.
Its investments lead to the creation of a working and middle class capable
of assuming control over the commanding heights of the economy via nationalist
and/or socialist struggle. In contrast the discontent of the ravaged population
and the pillage of economies under imperial barbarism, has led to the emergence
of pre-modern ethno-religious mass movements, with retrograde practices,
(mass terror, sectarian violence etc.). Theirs is an ideology fit for
a theocratic state.
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- Economic imperialism with its 'colonial division of
labor', extracting raw materials and exporting finished goods, inevitably
will lead to new nationalist and perhaps later socialist movements. As
EI undermines local manufacturers and displaces, via cheap industrial exports,
thousands of factory workers, movements will emerge. China may seek to
avoid this via 'plant transplants'. In contrast barbaric imperialism is
not sustainable because it leads to prolonged wars which drain the imperial
treasury and injury and death of thousands of American soldiers every year.
Unending and unwinable colonial wars are unacceptable to the domestic population.
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- The 'goals' of military conquest and satrap rule are
illusory. A stable, 'rooted' political class capable of ruling by overt
or tacit consent is incompatible with colonial overseers. The 'foreign'
military goals imposed on imperial policymakers via the influential presence
of zionists in key offices have struck a mighty blow against the profit
seeking opportunities of American multi-nationals via sanctions policies.
Pulled downward and outward by high military spending and powerful agents
of a foreign power, the resort to barbarism has a powerful effect in prejudicing
the US economy.
- Countries looking for foreign investment are far more
likely to pursue joint ventures with economic driven capital exporters
rather than risk bringing in the US with all its military, clandestine
special forces and other violent baggage.
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- Today the overall picture is grim for the future of
militarist imperialism. In Latin America, Africa and especially Asia,
China has displaced the US as the principal trading partner in Brazil,
South Africa and Southeast Asia. In contrast the US wallows in unwinable
ideological wars in marginal countries like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The US organizes a coup in tiny Honduras, while China signs on to billion
dollar joint ventures in oil and iron projects in Brazil and Venezuela
and an Argentine grain production. The US specializes in propping up broken
states like Mexico and Columbia, while China invests heavily in extractive
industries in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Iran. The symbiotic relationship
with Israel leads the US down the blind ally of totalitarian barbarism
and endless colonial wars. In contrast China deepens its links with the
dynamic economies of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil and the oil riches
of Russia and the raw materials of Africa.
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- James Petras latest book is War Crimes in Gaza and
the Zionist Fifth Column in America (Atlanta:Clarity Pres 2010)
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