What Is Imperialism, from Yesterday to Today?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article begins by examining contemporary theories of imperialism, then highlights the relevance of older interpretations. As a matter of fact, Lenin’s theory—especially when he speaks of a “merger of banking capital and industrial capital,” anticipates the direct and indirect role played by financial capital in the export of capital by the center to the periphery. Such export reinforces the drainage of surplus value towards the center through the double process of unequal exchange and overexploitation. The article then returns to Marx who maintains that imperialism could be explained by the downward trend in the profit rate in developed countries, when the latter do not find enough means to counteract it at home and look for new ones through colonization and international trade. Marx suggests another counter-trend which is confirmed today: the transfer of productive work to the periphery, because only productive labor creates value. The article finally focuses on the case of China, by asking: How was it able, unlike other countries and despite unequal exchange, to benefit from foreign investments, thus to emancipate itself from imperialism? And what does it do in turn to help other underdeveloped countries develop without subjugating them?