Thank your very much for your excellent commentary, Andrej. You are entirely correct.
U.S. policymakers began to discern the need for a new form of expansion, not territorial, at the end of the nineteenth century. In the aftermath of the conquest of the West (Western U.S. territory), and anticipating problems with respect to the social control of populations in any newly acquired territory in, for example, Mexico and Central America, the USA turned to imperialist policies, that is, interventions in other countries in order to control the economic policies of those countries (especially with respect to foreign companies), without formal political control of the territory. Imperialism emerged as the consistent basis of U.S. foreign policy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Around the middle of the twentieth century, the English and French colonial empires disintegrated, and imperialism became the standard policy of the global powers in what was transitioning to a neocolonial world-system.
But the transition to imperialism and neocolonialism was occurring in the context of the world-system reaching the geographical limits of the earth. In this context, there were more limited possibilities for economic expansion for the system as a whole. In the twentieth century, there was nothing comparable to the nineteenth century U.S. conquest of the West or the English and French conquest of vast regions of Africa and Asia. In the twentieth century, it was a zero-sum game of competing imperialisms, for example, Britain taking Germany’s African colonies; or the U.S. economically penetrating territories that were once part of European colonial empires. The neoliberal project beginning in 1980 was a response to this situation; neoliberalism enabled greater imperialist economic and financial penetration of the previously conquered territories of the neocolonies.
But neoliberalism has only deepened the political, economic, and ecological contradictions the world-system. An alternative world-system must be constructed on a foundation of respect for the sovereignty of nations and mutually-beneficial trade, as is being proposed in theory and practice by such nations as Cuba, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
Great summary of the WS perspective of the emergence of the World Capitalist economy.
While territorial conquests were the key to establishing political and economic domination in the past, I am not sure this is true any longer. Control of territory is costly and new technologies like air power and digital communications have allowed the US to establish a more efficient form of global military empire based on an extensive system of military bases, rather than on direct control of large territories (see Imerwahl's great book "How to Hide an Empire"). A the same time direct control of land and populations (to be exploited) no longer seems to be the most profitable form of economic activity, but rather creating value chains in which your country holds the most profitable segments and other less profitable ones are outsourced to the periphery. The example of the Apple Ipad comes to mind -- made in China but less than 10 bucks of the profits go to China for physically manufacturing it while the largest parts go to the US for marketing and R&D. The basic WS logic of exploitative core-periphery relations continues to hold. As you so succinctly put it "The center [core] transforms the economic institutions of the peripheral regions, so that they function to promote the economic interests and provide for the productive needs of the center [core]." But the tools used to constitute and reproduce these exploitative relations are much more subtle and rely less on direct conquest and coercion and more on indirect forms of control - co-opting peripheral economic and security elites into the global value chains while the rest of the populations is ruthlessly exploited in manufacturing jobs and brutally kept from rising up by the comprador local elites, and dominating the global commons through bases and air and naval power. the system does not entirely rely on coercion. The ideological hegemony of liberalism and the seductiveness of consumer culture also helps manufacture some degree of consent amongst those that are being exploited. However, the core is prepared to use coercion when necessary and maintains the tools to do so.
Thank your very much for your excellent commentary, Andrej. You are entirely correct.
U.S. policymakers began to discern the need for a new form of expansion, not territorial, at the end of the nineteenth century. In the aftermath of the conquest of the West (Western U.S. territory), and anticipating problems with respect to the social control of populations in any newly acquired territory in, for example, Mexico and Central America, the USA turned to imperialist policies, that is, interventions in other countries in order to control the economic policies of those countries (especially with respect to foreign companies), without formal political control of the territory. Imperialism emerged as the consistent basis of U.S. foreign policy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Around the middle of the twentieth century, the English and French colonial empires disintegrated, and imperialism became the standard policy of the global powers in what was transitioning to a neocolonial world-system.
But the transition to imperialism and neocolonialism was occurring in the context of the world-system reaching the geographical limits of the earth. In this context, there were more limited possibilities for economic expansion for the system as a whole. In the twentieth century, there was nothing comparable to the nineteenth century U.S. conquest of the West or the English and French conquest of vast regions of Africa and Asia. In the twentieth century, it was a zero-sum game of competing imperialisms, for example, Britain taking Germany’s African colonies; or the U.S. economically penetrating territories that were once part of European colonial empires. The neoliberal project beginning in 1980 was a response to this situation; neoliberalism enabled greater imperialist economic and financial penetration of the previously conquered territories of the neocolonies.
But neoliberalism has only deepened the political, economic, and ecological contradictions the world-system. An alternative world-system must be constructed on a foundation of respect for the sovereignty of nations and mutually-beneficial trade, as is being proposed in theory and practice by such nations as Cuba, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia.
Charles
Great summary of the WS perspective of the emergence of the World Capitalist economy.
While territorial conquests were the key to establishing political and economic domination in the past, I am not sure this is true any longer. Control of territory is costly and new technologies like air power and digital communications have allowed the US to establish a more efficient form of global military empire based on an extensive system of military bases, rather than on direct control of large territories (see Imerwahl's great book "How to Hide an Empire"). A the same time direct control of land and populations (to be exploited) no longer seems to be the most profitable form of economic activity, but rather creating value chains in which your country holds the most profitable segments and other less profitable ones are outsourced to the periphery. The example of the Apple Ipad comes to mind -- made in China but less than 10 bucks of the profits go to China for physically manufacturing it while the largest parts go to the US for marketing and R&D. The basic WS logic of exploitative core-periphery relations continues to hold. As you so succinctly put it "The center [core] transforms the economic institutions of the peripheral regions, so that they function to promote the economic interests and provide for the productive needs of the center [core]." But the tools used to constitute and reproduce these exploitative relations are much more subtle and rely less on direct conquest and coercion and more on indirect forms of control - co-opting peripheral economic and security elites into the global value chains while the rest of the populations is ruthlessly exploited in manufacturing jobs and brutally kept from rising up by the comprador local elites, and dominating the global commons through bases and air and naval power. the system does not entirely rely on coercion. The ideological hegemony of liberalism and the seductiveness of consumer culture also helps manufacture some degree of consent amongst those that are being exploited. However, the core is prepared to use coercion when necessary and maintains the tools to do so.