On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, you wrote: > >Could you really see India or China becoming once more targets >> for land grabs by any of the OECD countries? > > Absolutely not (and what a great advance for humanity that this is so). But > just as I would see a conception of imperialism as being only about the > domination of pre-capitalist formations by capitalist ones as being a rather > old-fashioned one, so also would I regard a conception of imperialism that > was restricted to annexation and the like. > > In fact, I would say that such an outlook was not simply old-fashioned, but > in fact wrong even in the epoch in which it had some apparent force: to take > a case from one of Paul's first posts on this, the late-19th century > imperialists never attempted to annex China: rather, they attempted to carve > out spheres of interest with special privileges. I think that in considering imperialism, the difference in degree of social development between the imperial and dominatedcountries is crucial. For imperialism or colonialiam to succeed there must be a big difference in level. The pre-capitalist countries that avoided imperialist takeover in the 19th century were ones that had well established feudal monarchies or empires: Abyssina, Japan, China, Persia, Siam. Such relatively well developed state structures were able to resist incorporation by 19th century capitalist imperialism. Even in the 19th century, China was regarded as too strong for Britain, France or Russia to take over. The point about imperialism being a source of war was that the second wave of capitalist powers - Germany, Japan and Italy had a restricted set of territories open to colonisation, these being the hardest nuts to crack. Germany got some parts of Africa in the congress of Berlin but Italy and Japan were left to try and take on the Feudal empires of Ethiopia and China. The first Italian attempt to invade Ethiopia was humiliatingly defeated, and they only succeeded once they had the benefit of air power in the 30s. Japan's attempt to take over China took huge military efforts and eventually failed. The two world wars were not about spheres of influence but about actually taking over territory. This is not an old fashioned view, it is simply a realistic view of an 'old fashioned' world which does not presently exist. It was the invasions of Ethiopia and China that started off the second world war. It is possible that the EU and NAFTA might develop into autarchic bodies, which might some time in the future start grabbing land again. I do not rule this out. But that is not yet happening. They are not autarchic blocks. Also one has to be concrete in these things. Which areas of the world are potentially targets for imperialist takeover? I would say that the necessary gradient in millitary strength exists between the capitalist powers and most sub-saharan African states, with the clear exceptions of Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. So these could potentially be re-incorporated as protectorates if not colonies. Another target might be central Asia, the former Soviet republics there might become bones of contention between Russia, China, and NATO. -- Paul Cockshott, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland 0141 330 3125 mobile:07946 476966 paul@cockshott.com http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/people/personal/wpc/ http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/index.html
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