From: Allin Cottrell (cottrell@wfu.edu)
Date: Wed May 28 2003 - 00:09:28 EDT
On Tue, 27 May 2003, gerald_a_levy wrote: > Paul C, responding to Paul B, wrote on Tuesday, May 27: > > > He (Michael E, JL) was making a fair point that Germany at > > present is not an imperial power. Clearly it was in the past, > > it might be in the future but it is not one now. > > The USA clearly is an imperial power, and so is France, and the UK > > is in the process of re-establishing itself as such. > > We agree that the US, France, and the UK are imperialist powers. > Why not Germany? Why not Japan? Why not many other > advanced capitalist nations? Why not e.g. Sweden and Switzerland? > > I gather you are presupposing that a military is a precondition for > imperialism? How so? Note that Paul uses the relatively straightforward term, "imperial power", not the more slippery "imperialist power". To be an imperial power, you need an empire: foreign countries over which you exercise direct political domination, which requires military power as precondition or back-up. Being home-base to banks with a wide international influence is not having an empire. Allin Cottrell.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu May 29 2003 - 00:00:01 EDT