(I changed the subject line because I think the question of imperialist booty interferes with the analysis of imperialism. It creates the illusion that the leopard could change its spots.)
"Devine, James" wrote: > > > I think Lennon (or what it Lenin?) had something to say here. You're talking about > > _imperialist policy_, which may or may not have a direct economic motivation. (My > > feeling is that most policies reflect the combined interests of coalitions of > > powerful blocs, some of which typically are crudely economic. But not always.) On > > the other hand, sophisticated opponents of imperialism see it not as a policy but > > as a social organization or institution that developed historically and > > characterizes world capitalism (and changes over time, so there are stages of > > imperialism). Imperialist policy -- such as the fear of a good example that > > Chomsky points to -- is generated within the framework of imperialism as a social > > system. It's the system that helps determine which groups have the power to form > > coalitions to determine policy, among other things. This is my interest. I really don't understand why some marxists are so anxious to prove that capitalists or capitalism _need_ imperialism or that imperialism is nasty. We do have a fact of some 400 years duration that core capitalist states have been invariably imperialist, and continue to be so. If, as Jim puts it here, imperialism is a social system (my wording has usually been that it is the mode of existence of capitalism), then arguments that capitalism "needs" imperialist profits (or needs imperialism) are as beside the point as it would be to argue that an organism "needs" carbon! Capitalism and imperialism are inseparable, and would be _even if_ imperialism hurt rather than aided profits. The whole attempt to prove that imperialism is bad seems to me to undercut marxism. (I say in this in abstraction from the argument over whether Marx's "disapproval" of capitalism was a "moral" judgment or not. He certainly wanted to destroy it.) What we need to do at a level of theory is _understand_ or _explain_ imperialism, not endlessly argue how bad it is. At the level of practice what we need to do is build opposition to specific imperialist policies, such as, for example, the current u.s. occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of the former Yugoslavia, etc. U.S. troops out of everywhere. Carrol
