The State, Empire and Imperialism

Abstract

This article aims to develop a Marxist account to explain the more informal practices of imperialism today. In this respect the article agrees with those Marxists who argue that capitalists and politicians have sought to impose the hegemonic economic project of financial neoliberalism across the globe. However, unlike some Marxist accounts which tend to explore imperialism primarily through socioeconomic relations, this article argues that financial neoliberal hegemony is achieved through social, political and ideological mechanisms as well. This is to see and understand capitalism as a complex, interconnected whole in which the way that capital accrues profits is through the exploitation, governance and regulation of living labour, which itself requires social, political and ideological mechanisms in place to do so. The article argues that in contemporary imperialism these ‘non-economic’ forms of regulation have often been embedded in seemingly non-imperialist and more informal types of governance that some have identified as ‘Empire’. The article suggests that these governance mechanisms have extended imperialist financial domination of the US state through the political projects of neoliberalism and workfarism.