Imperialism is not colonialism, just as industrial capital is not the same as what Marx calls the antediluvian forms of capital – commercial capital and usurer's capital. Indeed, Marx notes that industrial capital can never develop in conditions where these latter are dominant. The antediluvian forms of capital, as well as landed property, depend upon monopoly, protected markets and unequal exchange to appropriate surplus value. Industrial capital sweeps that away, and appropriates surplus value directly in production.
Colonialism was the product of mercantilism, of the symbiotic relation between landed property, and those antediluvian forms of capital. It was the last gasp of feudalism, and the first breath of the infant bourgeoisie. It enabled the landed aristocracy to extend its realms, and so extend its revenues from feudal rents; it enabled the commercial bourgeoisie to access vast new markets, and consequently vast commercial profits from trade. The first great ventures were launched as joint ventures between the aristocracy and merchant adventurers like Columbus, Magellan, Drake and Raleigh. In order to finance further adventures, opportunities for interest-bearing capital also arose, and the landed aristocracy also saw opportunities to “rent out” its monetary wealth, as well as its land, in return for interest.
However, as Oliver Cromwell Cox, described in Caste, Class and Race, this presented a contradiction for the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie, whose revolutionary ideology was founded on the basis of freedom, equality and equal exchange. As Marx describes, in Theories of Surplus Value, the Mercantilist economists, like Steuart, understood that profit, overall, cannot be explained by unequal exchange, or as Steuart called it “profit on alienation”. If every commodity owner cheats every other, as they exchange their commodities, then the profit of one is the loss of another, which then cancels out. However, the Mercantilists did understand that the wealth obtained by the early trading nations, like Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain, could be explained by such unequal exchange.
A large part of that unequal exchange required the existence of monopolies like the British and Dutch East India Companies, Hudson's Bay Company, and so on, created as under Royal Charter, as part of these early joint ventures between the landed aristocracy and commercial capital. It required the very opposite of the liberty, and equality under which the revolutionary bourgeoisie marched in Europe. It required the creation of protected foreign markets, seized by armed force, as well as the direct enslavement of native populations, some of which, were transported as commodities themselves, to the other side of the world, to work in plantations, and so on.
How could, the revolutionary bourgeoisie, whose ideology was based on the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, justify its actions that amounted to the direct opposite? Cox noted that previous modes of production did not require any justification, because they did not recognise any such principles. They were themselves based on the idea of inequality, including slavery and serfdom. Racism arises, Cox explains, because these early forms of capitalism, based on unequal exchange, monopoly and slavery, directly contradict its revolutionary ideology. The revolutionary bourgeoisie are forced to justify their actions on the basis of exceptionalism.
On the one hand, the enslavement of peoples is justified on the basis of claims that these peoples are not actually people, are sub-human. At the same time, the most successful of these colonial powers claim that they are exceptional, that their power is a consequence of them being “God's chosen people”, a refrain often heard when these powers went to war with each other, and, thereby, rather making a mockery of the claim itself. Of course, these same claims about the Palestinians being “sub-human”, or being “human animals”, and claims of being “God's chosen people”, are fundamental to Zionism, and repeatedly heard, today, as the Zionist state and its paramilitaries amongst the settlers, wages its genocide against the Palestinians, both in Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and indeed, inside Israel itself.
But, imperialism is not colonialism, and after WWII, in particular, as the vanguard of that imperialism, the United States, assumed global hegemony, it began to break apart that colonialism, along with its protected markets, monopolies, and unequal exchange. It did so, of course, for the benefit of US multinational corporations, which sought access to those markets, not least, access to the large amounts of exploitable labour they contained.
As with all other aspects of capitalism, it faces a contradiction. Unlike, the antediluvian forms of capital, industrial capital appropriates surplus value directly from production. Landed property (Rent), Commercial Capital (Commercial Profit), and Interest-bearing capital (interest/dividends) continue to obtain their revenues via unequal exchange, as a deduction from this surplus value, and, as Marx describes, therefore, have antagonistic interests to it. Landed property and interest-bearing capital, in particular provide no value to industrial capital, in exchange for the revenues they receive – which is why they do not participate in the formation of the average industrial rate of profit, standing outside its circuit.
Commercial capital, also does not contribute new value, in exchange for the commercial profit it obtains. However, it does reduce the distribution costs of industrial capital, and so increases the amount of realised surplus value produced, which is why it does participate in the formation of the average industrial rate of profit, and sits inside the circuit of industrial capital. Industrial capital, therefore, does not require monopolies, protected markets, or unequal exchange. Quite the contrary, and, as Marx set out as far back as The Communist Manifesto, and The Poverty of Philosophy, its revolutionary role, in part, consists in its sweeping them away.
In doing so, it also sweeps away all of those dominant ideas of the previous modes of production that justified their existence. But, history never proceeds in such a clean cut manner. Ideas, once created, and let loose on the world, do not simply disappear, when the conditions that led to their development no longer exist. They mutate and languish in stagnant reserves, and are used by others than those that initially created them, for other purposes. They become reactionary, as are the conditions that bred them. As Marx describes in The Poverty of Philosophy, slavery itself played a revolutionary role, without which the United States would not have existed, without which, the British industrial revolution, in the textile industry would not have existed, and so without which capitalism, and the industrial proletariat would not exist, meaning that the potential for Socialism would not exist.
Imperialism is the product of the domination of industrial capital, which arose in the last half of the 19th century, and becomes manifest in the requirement for ever larger single markets, as the basis of the ever expanding optimal size of production, and in the creation of multinational companies. The multinational state is the rational form of capital in its imperialist stage. It needs to be able to settle everywhere freely, uninhibited by the old colonial monopolies, and protected markets, it needs to be able to access labour as homogeneous labour, by establishing the free movement of both capital and labour, and so, all restrictions on such movement, be they restrictions on capital flows or immigration, are contradictory to its interests.
The continued support for the reactionary ideas of protectionism, of restrictions on freedom of movement stem not from the interest of industrial capital/imperialism, but from the interests of reactionary forms of property and classes, in particular, the petty-bourgeoisie. They have thrived in the past thirty years, because, in the developed economies, the petty-bourgeoisie has thrived at the expense of big capital, and the industrial proletariat. But, in large part, the ideas of prejudice have continued to diminish, particularly amongst younger workers, as also the dominant imperialist capital has found those ideas an impediment to its expansion.
But, in attempting to justify its support for Zionism, a racist ideology based upon exceptionalism, nationalism and racism, the imperialist states have shown how quickly they can fall back into the use of such ideas. Just look at the video of this former Obama aide, and his vile racist rant, as a prime example.
But, the whole range of behaviour by western imperialism reflects that same racist ideology. The reporting in western media is shockingly racist, which even a comparison of the coverage from the BBC, Sky News, and even Channel4, as against the coverage from Al Jazeera demonstrates. Even today, far more coverage is given to the horrible deaths of Israelis on October 7th than is given to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in the month that has followed. The statements of Zionist spokespeople are carried almost without qualification, whereas the statements from Gaza, whether from Hamas or not, are always prefixed with statements about Hamas being a terrorist organisation, Hamas controlled Health Authorities, and so on.
The coverage always talks about Israel's War against Hamas, which is a flagrant lie on several counts. Firstly, its not Israel's War, because Israel comprises large numbers of people, both Jew and Arab opposed to the genocide being undertaken. Secondly, its not a war being undertaken, which implies some kind of state standing on the other side of the Zionist onslaught. The Zionists have continually opposed any such Palestinian state being created, and what has been unleashed is not a war, but a one sided massacre of innocent civilians, men, and mostly women and children. Thirdly, the Zionist massacre is not targeted at Hamas, but at the Palestinian civilians, as even the Zionist generals have admitted.
When it came to Russia's war with Ukraine, imperialist politicians were quick to proclaim its war crimes, and to demand that Putin and others be indicted, as well as implementing sanctions against not only Russia, but any other country considered to be beaching those sanctions. Yet, the Zionists openly proclaim that they are committing war crimes, and indeed genocide against Palestinians, whilst western politicians like Biden, Sunak and Starner back them up, and stand shoulder to shoulder with them, provide them with even more deadly weapons, and even send their own armed forces to the Mediterranean and Red Sea to provide additional support to the genocide!
Britain is sending the RAF to fly over Gaza, not as in Libya, or Syria, to prevent the bombing of civilians by the Zionist state, but for surveillance, i.e. to spy on any Palestinian resistance, and undoubtedly to then send that information to their Zionist allies! The US has already joined in the fighting directly, by shooting down drones in the Red Sea, and bombing targets in Iraq!
Zionism is based on those old reactionary, colonialist ideas that imperialism moved beyond in the 20th century, and, so depends on all of those same reactionary ideas about exceptionalism, inequality and so on. In supporting the genocide of the Zionist state against Palestinians, imperialism and along with it the social-imperialists that act as its apologists is also being dragged back down into the sewer.
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