Questions on imperialism

[Boboulas]

1
Most people agree that the US is the imperial power of the world today and i was wondering how other countries relate to american imperialism. Specificly countries like the UK, france germany and japan. Are they seperate imperial powers or are they extensions of american economic imperialism?

2
The US having basicly "raised" these economies after WW2 makes me wonder to what extent does american interest conflict with other countries interests or is it merely a case of corperate interests conflicting than state interests conflicting?

3
Historicly what are the propaganda efforts used by imperial powers in other countries? The british empire in india or the US in latin america for example. What propaganda tactics were employed against the people they conquered.

Thankyou in advance!!

[Blake's Baby]

Other countries relate to American imperialism by either opposing it or allying with it (though in different parts of the world, countries may have different alliances, eg America and France are close in policy over Syria but not historically in Afghanistan).

The big players are America, China, Germany, France, Russia, Japan and Britain. Economic and military power can both be important here - Germany and Japan, not so militarily dominant, Russia and France (and increasingly Britain) not so economically dominant. But most European countries have a 'pro-America or pro-Germany?' policy divide; in Eastern Asia (or increasingly Africa) it's a 'pro-America or pro-China?' divide.

The USA has very few very close allies now. Israel and South Korea are really the only two I can think of. What it has is a series of (junior) partners that also have their own imperialist interests to consider (eg the UK in the Yugoslav Wars switching from the Anglo-French pro-Serbia position to the American pro-Bosnia then pro-KLA position). But at the same time (and as the Iraq War was going on) British, French and American backed guerrilla armies were shootiung at each other in West Africa (Liberia/Sierra Leone/Ivory Coast).

It's a very complex business.

[Boboulas]

Thanks for the reply blake. Although i still would like further detail of teh relationships between the USA and europe/japan. And also more detail on question 2 and 3.

[Luisrah]

1
Most people agree that the US is the imperial power of the world today and i was wondering how other countries relate to american imperialism. Specificly countries like the UK, france germany and japan. Are they seperate imperial powers or are they extensions of american economic imperialism?

2
The US having basicly "raised" these economies after WW2 makes me wonder to what extent does american interest conflict with other countries interests or is it merely a case of corperate interests conflicting than state interests conflicting?

3
Historicly what are the propaganda efforts used by imperial powers in other countries? The british empire in india or the US in latin america for example. What propaganda tactics were employed against the people they conquered.

Thankyou in advance!!

In my view (I'm still a sort of begginer), the US and the EU have a ''tenuous peace'', meaning that each of them wants to control the world, while none of them wants capitalism to be destroyed or giving the control of the world to China, for example, by waging war with each other.

Capitalism always leads to crysis, becauses overproduction is it's nature. By paying the workers less than what they produce, than they will never have enough money to buy everything the capitalist sells.
The only ways to make it work is by eliminating competition, in this case imperialism. If your neighbours buy your products, than the risk of crysis diminishes. However, they want to make a profit too, so the only way to sell your goods is to eliminate competition, in this case, destroying the neighbours industries.

In reality they don't do it to prevent crysis, they do it to make more profit. Since there is overproduction, they can't make the most profit because they can't sell everything, so they go looking for better markets.

This is what's happening in the EU. Countries like mine (Portugal) are losing their national production, because with no restrictions as there are in the EU (we are losing our independence) France, the UK, Italy and Germany (the biggest powers) sell their products here at much lower prices.
People buy those products because their cheaper, our companies can't sell their products (and even less their ''overproducts'') and they can't destroy those power's industries, so they have to close. -> Imperialism

Competition between companies and between countries is very similar. Imperialism is like a large scale monopoly.

Companies/countries produce and over produce, so they must sell to wider markets. They must eliminate competition either by selling cheaper (the case of the EU), or by physically eliminating competition (US bombing industries in WW2)
The other company/country goes bankrupt (runs out of money/loses national production and unemployment rates skyrocket) and the first company/country achieves monopoly/imperialism.

This even leads us to another conclusion, that it is impossible to have healthy capitalism (no crysis) without unemployment. If they employ everyone, overproduction skyrockets, and they can only not-overproduce if not everyone is producing (and being exploited)

[automattick]

2
The US having basicly "raised" these economies after WW2 makes me wonder to what extent does american interest conflict with other countries interests or is it merely a case of corperate interests conflicting than state interests conflicting?

It conflicts as do any company which attempts to earn more profits than a rival. Marx never really went into enormous detail on the role of the state, however in Vol. III he did observe how the state itself becomes sucked in by capital, along with other pre-capitalist formations. As Michael Parenti has noted, the corporation follows the flag, and US President Woodrow Wilson made sure that any US foreign intervention in Latin America would mean a chance to strike it rich there as well. State competition, in this view, means the ability to support national companies in order to establish new markets. The company's interest is often the state's interest. Popular rhetoric in the United States and elsewhere has it that there are some politicians who support companies and some that don't; well, really it is a manner of a smaller company trying to have more of a voice than that of a bigger company. Here, it is important to mention Immanuel Wallerstein (while not a full-fledged Marxist, he does exhibit some tendencies to behave as one), where he says that the free trade gospel is said only by the smaller companies in relation to bigger ones; in reality, no large company wants to have no-holds-barred competition. Marx takes it a step further, and actually analyzes such a system to describe why even a perfect free market in the end causes wealth inequality.


3
Historicly what are the propaganda efforts used by imperial powers in other countries? The british empire in india or the US in latin america for example. What propaganda tactics were employed against the people they conquered.

Well, the British Empire adhered to a policy of (the exact name of which escapes me) similar to the Romans in that so long as the colonies paid their taxes and obeyed imperial law (no uprising, etc.), the local patriarchy could remain in power. For the French, it was a policy of assimilation, where every colony was a "child" of the motherland France, therefore one could gain citizenship regardless of color if they adopted a complete bourgeois French identity. Easier said than done, many Africans who went to Paris were obviously viciously discriminated against for the color of their skin anyway.

During decolonization in Africa, the British were unable to hold onto their colonies do to their post-war financial exhaustion as well as the many labor riots which swept through England in the 1950s-60s. Many just opted to hand their colonies over, some, like in Kenya, fought the British. The French, also fought to hold on, but eventually gave their African colonists a decision: they could have more or less full political autonomy, but remain in a Francocentric economic commonwealth or they could have complete independence, and be left to fend for themselves. In places like Cameroon, for instance, which opted for complete independence, the French actually took every single French-made railroad, telephone pole, etc. and brought it back to France, essentially leaving the country in near-primeval conditions economically and infrastructure-ly.

Whether it was the comprador class in China or the creoles in French and Spanish colonies, there always existed a mirrored bourgeoisie in the colonies which was heavily dependent on economic relations of the so-called "mother country". Marx points this our in Manifesto. It might be worth reading Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth to understand the different class elements of imperialism and where they lead to during decolonization.

Today, America takes the Anglo-Roman model albeit colonization really isn't present. Since many people have it in their heads that imperialism necessitates a presence of not only foreign troops, but of foreign creoles, imperialism does not exist. It does. We have to think of why imperialism even exists economically, then we can fill in the details as to how it might operate.

Hope that helps, sorry for the lecture.

[Boboulas]

Great replys from both of you, thanks.