Imperialism today

[scarletghoul]

I've been thinking and reading about this a lot lately. Imperialism is very complicated now and there seem to be loads of differant styles, levels, and spheres of imperialism so its pretty confusing.

For example there are the more flagrant types of imperialism like colonialism (Malvinas, north of Ireland etc), military occupation (Iraq, Aghanistan, Japan, South Korea, Haiti etc), territorial expansionism (eg Palestine); but there is also the global capitalist system which subjugates whole peoples without the need for a colony, military occupation, or theft of land.(Of course sometimes these things are used as precautionary measures when the imperialists see a potential threat, and the more obvious imperialism emerges, but often it remains relatively calm and the economic imperialism continues without needing military support). There's also differant imperialist powers, who seem to be competing in some instances (eg Russia and US) while collaborating in others (US-UK joint imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan) and companies from competing powers are allowed access to markets in eachother (even Japan despite the 10000s of US troops there has a load of companies profiting from Amerikan markets). So you can see I'm kinda confused with all these differant contradictions and stuff.

Does anyone know of any good recent analyses and explanations of modern imperialism ? I mean like post-coldwar era, but not something that just focusses on Amerikan imperialism but Russian capitalism, british imperialism, the EU etc aswell.

a few specific questions
:
Is the global capitalist/imperialist system divided by national lines anymore ? Was Huey Newton correct when he said that global capitalism had already abolished nations for us and left us with a load of communities and territories under a single economic system with its base in the USA ? If so, then does that mean the obvious oldschool imperialism (ie north Ireland) is no worse than than the quieter capitalist imperialism (ie republic of Ireland) ? Maybe the obvious colonies and military occupations are just bases to reinforce the wider capitalist/imperialist system in each region ?

[More Fire for the People]

Imperialism is no longer the product of nation-states but operated through international economic superstructural arrangements that (a) create a subgroup of proletarians in the West who are able to buy consumer items typically limited to the purchasing power of the bourgeoisie, or, in other words, a 'middle class'; that (b) create another subgroup of the working class that, due to the diminishing role of the welfare state and unions, lives in relatively impoverished conditions and exist on the periphery of society--"white trash", poor African Americans and Latinos, dependent drug-users, the chronically unemployed and under-employed, "welfare queens", etc.; and (c) reduces the cost of commodities by exporting production to the "third world" where labor, environmental, and consumer costs are negligible. This leads to a massive inflow of investment capital from the West and a massive outflow of natural resources and manfactured commodities from the Third World. This accelerates the impoverishment of Third World denizens and the continual reliance on debt and high-risk investment in the West as the decline in industrial production has reduce the amount of variable capital in circulation.

[scarletghoul]

Yes I know about all that comrade. I was wondering more about the differant types of imperialism and how the national differances affect/are affected by the global nature of the capitalist system.


(b) create another subgroup of the working class that, due to the diminishing role of the welfare state and unions, lives in relatively impoverished conditions and exist on the periphery of society--"white trash", poor African Americans and Latinos, dependent drug-users, the chronically unemployed and under-employed, "welfare queens", etc.; andWould just like to add that this isnt just creating a subgroup of the working class, it is also vastly expanding the lumpenproletariat, and the semi-lumpen (is that a word?).