Very good and important post. I recommend tracking back to Craig Murray's post too.

The chief economic source of Imperialism has been found in the inequality of industrial opportunities by which a favoured class accumulates superfluous elements of income which, in their search for profitable investments, press ever farther afield:

This has changed. For various complex reasons (no time to explicate now) the industrial opportunity bird has flown the coop to be replaced by two things:

1) So-called monopolization of knowledge dissemination and application and use through patent and free-trade (GATT S) laws, which is exponentially compounded by virtual monopoly ownership of the resource base (land and life) upon which this knowledge is applied.

2) The financialization (hyper-commodification, Baudrillard) of everything, as detailed by Doug Dowd and others, this almost cyber-market in all manner of financial instrument and assorted derivative trading gambling mentality has exploded to the point where it vastly outsizes any trade in real goods and services by a factor of several times leading to destabilization, originally controllable by elite leading to greater profits and inequality by insider manipulation, but now uncontrollable by its cancerous multi-leveled growth, leading to the severe likelihood of unforeseen "excursionary" events, such as global financial meltdown.

Sorry for the Fulleresque writing style. Lack of time prevents me from expanding and writing more understandably.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 4 2007 14:13 utc | 1

Federal Agents Searching People at Indianapolis Bus Stops: Air Marshals Patting Civilians Down

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 4 2007 15:07 utc | 2

The only imperialism US needs to worry about is fiat imperialism in the form of deficit corporation-government fascism, and monetary inflation, especially hedge derivations thereof. The threshold is easy to determine. Divide rising COLA by
falling SSTF. Where those lines cross, permanent institutional slavery begins.

Posted by: Peris Troika | Aug 4 2007 16:13 utc | 3

opps, sorry #2 should have been in ot...

Posted by: | Aug 4 2007 17:28 utc | 4

i know yr going to moan but i still think lénine is a good read & his imperialism a useful tool

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 4 2007 17:31 utc | 5

No amount of college type essays, or refs. to books, can cover over the fact that third world is being f** over. Systematically. It will increase in the future, as peak oil hits, etc.

The policies of the WTO, IMF, Gatt, even the UN, are designed to ensure ‘western domination.’

Good luck to them.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 4 2007 17:42 utc | 6

remembereringgiap

You are not paying attention. Lenin's Imperialism was plagiaries almost entirely from J A Hobson's book being quoted, with the addition of a skein of Communist rubbish jargon.

Posted by: Craig Murray | Aug 4 2007 17:52 utc | 7

sorry, plagiarised

Posted by: Craig Murray | Aug 4 2007 17:54 utc | 8

Hi Craig, good to see you here. Great blog and best wishes.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 4 2007 19:06 utc | 9

wow. fun. the old boy really nails the globalization of capital in his own time. I read part I. These jumped out at me:

The particular direction in which large quantities of capital and labour have been employed has been determined by these external markets. But we are not entitled to conclude that if this export trade had not grown up this capital and labour would have been without productive employment, though some of it must have been differently employed. The assumption that home demand is a fixed amount, and that any commodities produced in excess of this amount must find a foreign market or remain unsold, is quite unwarranted. On the contrary, there is no necessary limit to the quantity of capital and labour which can be employed in producing goods for the home market, if the productive power is disposed in industries which meet the rising demands of the consumer.

so, here we presume i guess at least constant returns on investment, confiscated by the "certain class":

Irrational from the standpoint of the whole nation, it is rational enough from the standpoint of certain classes in the nation. A completely socialist State which kept good books and presented regular balance-sheets of expenditure and assets would soon discard Imperialism; an intelligent laissez-faire democracy which gave duly proportionate weight in its policy to all economic interests alike would do the same. But a State in which certain well-organised business interests are able to outweigh the weak, diffused interest of the community is bound to pursue a policy which accords with the pressure of the former interests.

so,the basic distinction of hobson's account from that-person-whose-name-makes-leftists-moan/groan is that there is no structural imperative (what was often called "iron law of production") rationalizing global expansion of markets assuring accumulation because of decreasing returns on investment resulting in "the tendential fall in the rate of profit." hobson rejects this thesis:

Such is the array of distinctively economic forces making for Imperialism, a large loose group of trades and professions seeking profitable business and lucrative employment from the expansion of military and civil services, from the expenditure on military operations, the opening up of new tracts of territory and trade with the same, and the provision of new capital which these operations require, all these finding their central guiding and directing force in the power of the general financier.

so, what is irrational is the intercession of "certain classes" in the exploitation of a capitalist mode of production. Whereas the man-w/-whitebeard-and-soft-eyes-and-bighair would say that the basic mode of capitalist production determines class conflict, hobson says that it's in the interests of certain classes to be what they are regardless of the mode of production:

Thus a great increase of savings seeking profitable investment is synchronous with a stricter economy of the use of existing capital. No doubt the rapid growth of a population, accustomed to a high and an always ascending standard of comfort, absorbs in the satisfaction of its wants a large quantity of new capital. But the actual rate of saving, conjoined with a more economical application of forms of existing capital, has exceeded considerably the rise of the national consumption of manufactures. The power of production has far outstripped the actual rate of consumption, and, contrary to the older economic theory, has been unable to force a corresponding increase of consumption by lowering prices.

thus, because certain classes choose to deprive lesser classes a fairer share of the social product, overaccumulation occurs. overaccumulation is the"taproot" of imperialism. the normative aspect in hobson's book is:

Whatever is, or can be, produced, can be consumed, for a claim upon it, as rent, profit, or wages, forms part of the real income of some member of the community, and he can consume it, or else exchange it for some other consumable with some one else who will consume it.

...

It is not industrial progress that demands the opening up of new markets and areas of investment, but mal-distribution of consuming power which prevents the absorption of commodities and capital within the country.

this is great stuff, reminiscent of veblen, frank parsons, etc. ... but, to be sure, the tradition of critique of capital derived from the man-whose-checkbooks-were-balanced-by-his-best-friend locates the problem in actually existing social relations determined by the capitalist mode of production. the only way to change these relations is the transformation of the mode of production. the old-man-whose-name-must-not-be-uttered might not be right, and hobson's reformism might work, but we've had a century of reforms and look at the mess we're in.

great post. thanks.

Posted by: slothrop | Aug 4 2007 19:29 utc | 10

btw. i don't see much continuity really between hobson's left-liberal account of imperialism and the western-what's-his-name-ism critique of imperialism supplied by luxemburg, all those dependency theorists (gunder frank, arrighi, amin, etc.), and the current crop of whitebearded-ist interpretations of globalization (gowan, harvey).

Posted by: slothrop | Aug 4 2007 19:39 utc | 11

and to add,

any discourse of empire wrt class from the Marxist, Leninist or Leftist perspective that fails to acknowledge the reality of the global racialist-based class system we have today is incomplete & possibly suspect.

the thundering non-chalance of the Eurocentric world (and this includes Black, White & Brown) over the near-million unnecessary Iraqi deaths and four million Iraqi displaced clearly demonstrates how we class-ify them & us. The demonization of the Arab & Muslim class speaks loud & c]lear. The procedure to re-bring chaos & big-lies to Africa in the pursuit of plunder relies on the very same means & manner of class on the slave-ship & plantation.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 4 2007 19:57 utc | 12

Oh god, there goes aunt slothrop, can we hide her in the guest room before she runs off the new company ? Forgive our crazy aunt Mr. Murray...

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 4 2007 21:41 utc | 13

Mark Jones: The ecology of capitalist intersubjectivity

Capitalism has long ago abandoned universalist ideas of development and rising standards for all. No-one objects. Under the guise of abandoning the neurosis, guilt and parsimony of the patriarchal personality, which was a principal social invention of 19th century capitalism, and stimulated by the mass conscription of women into the labour-force, there has been a resolute attempt to deconstruct the family as a residual instance of solidarity against capital, and to pull away the psychic supports of a personality-template organised around a psychic centre of sacrifice, heterosexual gender identity, sexual control and repression of the feminine. In its place we are witnessing the creation of a new personality-type adequate to global capital which has subordinated the family as well as the nation, commoditising their functions and liquidating the arsenal of atavistic symbols of community, mystery, sacrifice and other- directed struggle, seen as no longer required to legitimise bourgeois hegemony and objectively now only the rags of archaic value-system, absorbed by the deceitful misogynies of the New Right and no more than a menace to Neo-liberalism. The new ludic, androgynous personality, playful, self-regarding, narcissistic perhaps, is meant to be incapable of solidarity or commitment......

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 4 2007 22:30 utc | 14

Jonathan Schwarz discusses* “the standard historical trajectory of imperial elites”:

A]t a certain point they either (1) forget the power they can wield outside their country ultimately derives from a healthy society beneath them, or (2) understand that but decide they’d rather be comparatively more powerful within a poorer society and less powerful outside.

To understand choice #2 it’s useful to look at an extreme example, like Saudi Arabia. Certainly it has the natural wealth to be able to oppose Israel effectively. And you’d assume their elites want to do that, given that they’re always screeching about it. But effective opposition would require Saudi society to be internally far more democratic, educated and egalitarian. So the Saudi princes have decided they’d prefer their country to be a weak, poor backwater if that’s what’s required for them to each own nine palaces. As William Arkin said about our new $20 billion arms sale to the saudis:

U.S. officials say the United States will seek assurances from Saudi Arabia that it will not store its new Joint Direct Attack Munitions—the satellite-guided bombs—at northern air bases, where they could threaten Israel.

Israel needn’t worry. The Saudi military is even less dangerous than the gang who couldn’t shoot straight…it’s not just incompetence when it comes to the Saudi military. The Saudi monarchy has methodically focused its military on pomp and equipment and spiffy uniforms, ensuring that it not acquire any real offensive capacity or the ability to operate as a coherent force. It does not want a competent, independent military contemplating a coup.

The same thing is true in the rest of the Arab world. For instance, at the beginning of the Six Day War in 1967, as Israel was bombing Egyptian airfields, the Egyptian air defense system was actually turned off. The Egyptian government had done this because they were more worried about internal enemies than Israel—they thought some rebel Egyptian military forces might be trying to shot down the plane of the Defense Minister, and didn’t want the rebels to be able to find out where it was.

Egyptian elites could have avoided this kind of internal conflict by having a democratic country with civilian control of the military, but who wants that? Far more enjoyable to be autocrats who turn off their air defense system RIGHT WHEN THEY’RE BEING BOMBED.

America’s elites are, at heart, the same way. They’d prefer to be emirs and kings running a shambling catastrophe of a country than moderately rich men in Sweden.

This articulates and clarifies a whole bunch of things I’ve been coming to suspect for a very long time. via Making Light

*A country that can't keep its bridges from collapsing is not going to be running the world very much longer. That's the interesting thing about the standard historical trajectory of imperial elites...at a certain point they either (1) forget the power they can wield outside their country ultimately derives from a healthy society beneath them, or (2) understand that but decide they'd rather be comparatively more powerful within a poorer society and less powerful outside.(...)

America's elites are, at heart, the same way. They'd prefer to be emirs and kings running a shambling catastrophe of a country than moderately rich men in Sweden.

Yes, I'm half sloshed I have no problem with escapism in a country that is looking more and more like a vast dead city.

" I don't mind being called an escapist on a planet that is looking more and more like a Black Iron Prison"- Robert Anton Wilson

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 4 2007 22:53 utc | 15

Peris Troika, if you're still around, would you pls. show compassion for the many financial illiterates around here & elaborate?

Posted by: jj | Aug 5 2007 6:55 utc | 16

19th cent capitalism, and today. All well and good. Most (? slothrop added a coupla layers and I haven’t read them all) of the authors treat relations between man and man, man and material stuff - eg. goods / some resources, such as land, and man and money, and money to money. At heart. To boil it down.

They ignore, or rather treat as a constant backdrop, a stage on which actions and battles are played out, the other actor in the drama that is unfolding. Lets call it the Sun - the solar system, the natural system of earth that is dependent on it (e.g. soil, climate, plant and animal life), the energy it has provided us with (fossil fuels, biomass, etc.) There is a huge chunk of ‘capital’ that is not taken into account, left in the shade. Of course it is not just ‘capital’ as it provides the conditions for life itself. Perhaps that is a conceptual stumbling block...

The life of plankton, or the laws of thermodynamics, soil quality...are...AWOL.

Modern authors who have taken on that ‘capital’ and in one way or another have tended to be scientists, or social thinkers, or all round chaps (Gaia and philosophy and so on) - from the 70’s e.g. Ehrlich to e.g. Hubbert (50) to yesterday’s 80s systemicists (de Rosnay) to todays observant doomers (e.g. Kunstler.) Mixed bag, to be sure. All of them however set aside left analysis (Marxist-Leninist or offshoots.)

So here is a gulf: and as contemporary greens are in the main pro-growth social democrats (west), the meeting of the minds seems far off.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2007 16:44 utc | 17

i wanted to add, after thinking a bit more about the hobson piece, that the reform angle is failing now, before our very eyes.

a concrete example is what is going on in china. it is there that hobson's "rational" management of the capitalist mode of production should fetch success. and yet, according to yasheng huang (Selling China) the policies of the party intended to preserve socialist distribution has done so at the expense of small indigenous entrepreneurship. private capital is heavily regulated while foreign investment is not. this has led to the strange situation that FDI in china accounts for more that 50% of exports and by far the lion's share of knowledge-intensive research and production--a slice of the value added and increasing returns economy expropriated by multinationals.

as chairman deng said "who cares whether the cat is black or white, as long as he catches mice"

maybe this reformism will work in china at some point, but not now.

it seems the thesis the mode of production does determine social relations which no noble bureaucrat can undo.

Posted by: slothrop | Aug 5 2007 17:06 utc | 18

craig

lénine was a very mindful scholar & he sources hobson with acknowledgement several times in his book as was his habit in everything he wrote

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 5 2007 17:15 utc | 19

oh, geez, one more thing. hobson's imperialism is a vestigial reality for us, as was the imperialism of lenin. the imperialism we now suffer is embodied in largely neoliberal international capitalist institutions which do not defend the singular interests of nations, but defend more & more the interests of a polyglot caplitalist class. this class will certainly never "mind its own business" and retreat to defend god & country. those days are over. the capitalists know it, but too often we don't.

Posted by: slothrop | Aug 5 2007 17:25 utc | 20

johnny be cool wrote at 12 :

any discourse of empire wrt class from the Marxist, Leninist or Leftist perspective that fails to acknowledge the reality of the global racialist-based class system we have today is incomplete & possibly suspect.

Yes. Yet. Racism - racist sentiments and the actions, individual or collective it may lead to - have been, in the OECD, instrumentalized to mobilise ppl in a deliberate, planned way.

Racism itself, hard as it is to define a kernel -, competition with a group who comes from elsewhere, looks different, has different customs, occupies a different social/prof/geo. position, is some kind of perceived or real threat, leading to visceral irrepressible dislike, suspicion, and rejection - is in its pure form rather rare.

Class, status and money are far more powerful social markers. (Of course the two interact.)

Race has served to obscure the class distinction (US), and lighting up racial tensions, now in effect not racial but shifted to ‘religion’ and ‘custom / culture / other mindsets that are undefinable’ where none existed is a staple of populist pols and apparently global strategists (Iraq and its fake religious divisions.) Divide and rule, inflame ppl on questions of ancient scripts that have no modern application, and they will either kill each other, or be so busy with strife they see the big picture.

One obvious example, discussed here recently, if not in these terms, Iranians are too cool, they are Persians (not Arabs), they have this great culture, they love US tv, they have great food, movies, and do the most trans sex ops in the world, good schools, great music, etc. etc. That would fly in 2 minutes.

No, Iranians are part of the axis of Evil, are ‘those Arabs out there waiting to attack us’ - Islamists - etc.

Attitude manipulation, not racism.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2007 17:44 utc | 21

** corr. ..so busy with strife they don't see the big picture

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 5 2007 17:56 utc | 22

slothrop

Re your last post, that is what Hobson was saying. That is what makes his analysis so remarkably prescient.

Posted by: Craig Murray | Aug 5 2007 18:28 utc | 23

& to make clear, my comment is not of a sectarian kind but more of a scholarly gesture - is that many of the resources of imperialisme can be found in volume 39 of the collected works

in any case, i also welcome other voices here & anu critique of imperialism which actually matches the facts rather than my comrade slothrops more fluid phantasies

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 5 2007 18:31 utc | 24

Sloth's words @20, witness the IDF war last summer, no Israelis want to die for .............. what?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 5 2007 21:31 utc | 25

@21

I hear you loud & clear.

but to be Noirette & Black for about a week, I am certain you would have a whooole lot more to share.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 6 2007 5:34 utc | 26

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=54#more-54>Jim Lobe has a relevant post up RE sloths assertions, in real life time:

Today’s quotation in the Financial Times attributed to Danielle Pletka, the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), was a stunner. “If we …begin to sanction foreign companies through more stringent sanctions in the Iran Sanctions Act, I think there will be serious repercussions for our multilateral effort.”

Whatever would possess AEI and Pletka, who personally has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic cheerleaders of the rapidly spreading state divestment movement against companies doing business in Iran, to offer a cautionary note about adopting unilateral sanctions, let alone stress the importance of preserving multilateral unity with limp-wristed European allies in dealing with a charter member of the “Axis of Evil”? Judging from its provenance at what must be considered Neo-Con Central, it certainly couldn’t be common sense.

In fact, Pletka’s observation probably reflects growing tensions between AEI’s corporate contributors, many of whom are represented on its board of trustees, on the one hand, and, on the other, the hard-line neo-conservative views of its foreign-policy fellows, such as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Joshua Muravchik, and Pletka herself; academic advisers, such as Gertrude Himmelfarb, Eliot Cohen, and Jeremy Rabkin; and its board chairman, Bruce Kovner.

As AEI jumped on the divestment bandwagon initiated by Perle protégé Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP) earlier this spring with its publication of a list of evil-enabling companies, some of its corporate contributors with interests in some of those same companies — or in countries where those companies are based — objected. After all, multinational corporations, such as ExxonMobil, Motorola, American Express, State Farm Insurance, Dow Chemical, Merck & Co., Dell Inc. – all of which are represented in various ways on AEI’s board of trustees – not to mention General Electic, Amoco, Kraft, Ford Motor, General Motors, Eastman Kodak, Metropolitan Life, Proctor & Gamble, Shell, General Mills, Pillsbury, Prudential, Corning Glass Works, Morgan Guarantee, and Alcoa – all of whose foundations have reportedly contributed significant amounts of money to AEI – generally oppose economic sanctions that interfere with their investment and commerce, especially if they are unilateral and especially if they result in many jurisdictions (i.e. states) enacting different sanctions with which companies must comply.

“I know for a fact that some companies who are AEI contributors have complained to the president of AEI [Christopher DeMuth] about AEI’s involvement in this,” said William Reinsch, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), an association of some 550 of the biggest U.S. companies that, among other things, opposes unilateral economic sanctions. “There has been a significant level of upset by a number of [them].” In some cases, he added, companies complained about their inclusion on the list posted by AEI, while “others believe that it’s not an appropriate activity for AEI to be engaged in.”

Indeed, it is very strange that a think tank purportedly devoted to “limited government,” “private enterprise,” free markets and other neo-liberal ideals and funded in major part by the foundations of multinational corporations is actively leading a campaign to impose unilateral sanctions (and divestment) against multinational corporations like themselves and, in some cases, their own subsidiaries. After all, the history of such sanctions – against the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Iran itself, for example — shows that they often result in both resentment and retaliation – not just by the target country (Iran in this case), but also by friendly governments whose own companies stand to be negatively affected. That, in fact, was the point of the FT article whose lead sentence ran: “European governments are warning Congress that US legislation aimed at Iran could hit European energy groups, undermine transatlantic unity on Tehran’s nuclear programme and provoke a dispute at the World Trade Organisation.”

(Even the Bush administration, whose incumbency was due largely to the financial contributions of corporate givers, has opposed pending divestment and related sanctions legislation. “The Administration fears legislation such as H.R. 2347 would have the effect of dividing and splintering the coalition of allies and friends, which would be harmful to our common goal. Thus, passage of such legislation could result in a net loss, alienating friends, and having little to no prospect of modifying Iranian behavior.” The letter, delivered August 1, had virtually not impact, as the legislation in question, the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, was approved by the House, 408-6.)

While Pletka’s statement shows that she clearly understands the argument, however, there is no sign yet that AEI is reassessing its championship of sanctions and divestment. Despite her caution, the conference at which she voiced it was described by one corporate attendee as a “pep rally” for the divestment campaign. The question then is what will the corporate funders of AEI – which clearly like its free-market orientation but abhor divestment and sanctions – do? Will they back up their complaints by pulling their support? Or do they believe that the costs of its neo-conservative foreign-policy agenda are outweighed by the benefits of its effectiveness in promoting its neo-liberal economic agenda?
[...]
Still, the question remains: why do corporations provide funding to highly political think tanks that aren’t more responsive to their interests?

Interesting little clusterfuck the AEI has gotten itself into. Looks like the mullah's there have gotten a bit ahead of themselves, issuing edicts upon their cash cows. Or, are they looking for some sacrificial examples to trump the cows as a matter of state (over corporate) interests? Judging from Pletka's remorse, it could be backtracking just the same. They must really hate it when that happens, just when their magical Straussian philosophers party was about to liberate itself from the mundane.

Posted by: anna missed | Aug 6 2007 7:57 utc | 27

Noirette at 17 makes an excellent point:

Economic theories so far talk about trading this and that, creating value, "work", etc.

None pay attention to the other input, energy. As Noirette says, they ignore the Sun.

Future economic theories will have to deal with energy scarcity and abundance as fundamental.

Thanks for this new idea!

Posted by: jonku | Aug 6 2007 8:13 utc | 28

Really great thread, by the way. Just returned from our annual week in the woods, but hey, I heard a tree (actually a bunch) fall in the forest, but alas, didn't see it (or find it afterwards)- just heard it - I don't know what that means. Anyway, the immediate value I see in Hobson is his LANGUAGE, the crystal clarity in his descriptions. LANGUAGE, that needs so very much to enter the current political discourse.

Posted by: anna missed | Aug 6 2007 8:26 utc | 29

race, gender, wealth ... represent distinct & problematic class distinctions to the extent that a society permits.

Germany after all made some progresss in categorizing an idealized class of tall blonde blue eyed people.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 6 2007 10:36 utc | 30

Yes Jony I am so white I have freckles. I need to believe in my power. Not as white. NO. (Not sarcasm etc.)

something wrong with posting links, gave up.

Posted by: Noirette | Aug 6 2007 16:54 utc | 31

haven't had time to read anything other than the citations posted in this thread, but i see hobson stresses nationalism as a key for escaping imperialism, or at least the economic form of it. but from all of the literature i've been reading on the decolonization of the third world, the very first step that the colonizers took to ensure that a less-noticeably direct version of control over these territories actually continued, neocolonialism, was handing over power strictly to nationalist leaders & parties, while denying liberation to those seeking a social revolution that might actually restructure the socieities.

by strengthening the privilidge & groomed bourgeoisie elements preserved the existing institutions and economic infrastructure, hence dependency.

and, seeing as how many of these "nations" were drawn up & solidified by outsiders in the first place, so that buying into the concept of 'national interest' or a 'national will' automatically implies an acceptance of intellectual imperialism, i'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how a program based on nationalism offers a solution to decoupling from imperialism in all its forms -- economic, cultural, political, technology, etc...

does hobson or anyone else address this quandry in a manner that can help me get unstuck?

Posted by: b real | Aug 7 2007 4:59 utc | 32

haven't had time to read anything other than the citations posted in this thread, but i see hobson stresses nationalism as a key for escaping imperialism, or at least the economic form of it. but from all of the literature i've been reading on the decolonization of the third world, the very first step that the colonizers took to ensure that a less-noticeably direct version of control over these territories actually continued, neocolonialism, was handing over power strictly to nationalist leaders & parties, while denying liberation to those seeking a social revolution that might actually restructure the socieities.

by strengthening the privilidge & groomed bourgeoisie elements preserved the existing institutions and economic infrastructure, hence dependency.

and, seeing as how many of these "nations" were drawn up & solidified by outsiders in the first place, so that buying into the concept of 'national interest' or a 'national will' automatically implies an acceptance of intellectual imperialism, i'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how a program based on nationalism offers a solution to decoupling from imperialism in all its forms -- economic, cultural, political, technology, etc...

does hobson or anyone else address this quandry in a manner that can help me get unstuck?

Posted by: b real | Aug 7 2007 5:00 utc | 33

i see hobson stresses nationalism as a key for escaping imperialism

yes.

Posted by: slothrop | Aug 7 2007 5:05 utc | 34

b real@33,

BRILLIANT

as you know, this is THE major handicap for many "nations" struggling through the post/neo-colonial phase.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 7 2007 9:02 utc | 35

the imperialists/colonialists leave behind a class-structure that favors their interests.

and for the "nationalists" it's much less trouble to keep & maintain (with some adjustments) the same class system installed by the former master. Because who knows what might splash in from rocking the boat too hard.

the "nationalists" will also feel compelled to assume the role of custodian of peace and national-integrity. And they will interpret mounting stresses in the system as incentive to keep the train moving albeit in rickety ram-shackle fashion, rather than as cause for major changes.

to be fair though, the challenge of redressing the residual burden of colonization can require huge structtural changes and this will vary depending on the particular circumstance and also the nature & sizing of the constituent cultures involved.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 8 2007 16:32 utc | 36

@b real - 33 - interesting point. I'd suggest a mixture as there are certainly local coherences too that developed into nationalism. A long fight for independence itself can create nationalism.

Nationalism does NOT automatically favour equal social distribution or such.

Hobsen doesn't touch much on decolonization. (His major point is that imperialism is economically negative for the people of the emperor country.)

On your question you may find some answers in this book review (pdf) or maybe in the book itself.

Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (African Studies) (Paperback)
by Frederick Cooper (Author) "The era of decolonization was a time when the range of political possibilities seemed to open up, only to close down again..."

Posted by: b | Aug 8 2007 17:48 utc | 37

thanks b, i'll try to check it out later. already have one of cooper's books, colonialism in question: theory, knowledge, history, on order this fall. vijay prashad also touched on this issue of nationalism in his darker nations book, but i wasn't able to pull a good answer. i supposed one step is to avoid fixating on an absolute category of 'nationalism' and realize that there are likely as many different forms of it as there have been nationalist mvmts throughout history across the globe.

Posted by: b real | Aug 8 2007 19:53 utc | 38

real remedy from neo-colonization in Africa particularly will come when leaders who are not as steeped in Eurocentrism (by upbringing or affinity) emerge with doctrines aimed towards absorbing their masses into broader & deeper class-systems that engage the masses at the grass-roots cultural level.

and its already happening, slowly

the fact is that the very thin layer of a Eurocentric class system left by the colonialists has pretty much disintegrated. Whats left are dysfunctional class-structures and a whole bunch of Eurocentic consumerism and thats what is alive & well. But this can't sustain forever.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 8 2007 20:18 utc | 39

@b real - just to say - I didn't read Cooper and I have about 1% of you knowledge on African issues (and I shame myself for that). I rely on you and others to tell me. Sorry, I can't keep up with everything ..

Your question/statement on imperialism inducing a concept of government, retracting the obvious power while (re-)inducing it through class issues looks solid. I'd like too further into that by reading more studies. ...

There is something weird about this "national" concept in history which I haven't realy catched yet ...

Posted by: b | Aug 8 2007 20:20 utc | 40