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Imperialism
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Imperialism is a policy choice, not an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Increasing concentration of wealth within the richer countries leads to underconsumption for the mass of people. Overseas expansion is a way to reduce costs (and thereby increase or maintain profit levels) and to secure new consumption. Overseas expansion is not inevitable.... A state can solve the problem of underconsumption by increasing the income levels of the majority of the population either through legislation concerning wage levels (minimum wage laws, legalization of unions, child labor laws) or through income transfers (unemployment compensation, welfare).
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Those who explained Imperialism in terms of economics were rationalists themselves and therefore sought a rational explanation for the behaviour of others. If capitalists and politicians were as rational as Hobson and Brailsford, this is how they would behave. And of course a minority did. They took their profits, agreed with their enemy in the way and died quietly in their beds. But they did not set the pattern of events. It is disturbing that, while Hobson and Brailsford were so penetrating about the present, they were wrong about the future.
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Imperialism has many facets. In its economic form, it was based on mercantilism (the notion that countries became rich according to the amount of gold and silver the accumlated). Mercantilism meant monopoly trade with colonies. Socially, imperialism destroyed indigenous cultures. It created national boundaries that threw disparate people together into what later became artificial nations. This was especially true in Africa.
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Imperialism has two meanings, one describing an action and the other describing an attitude. Most commonly it is understood in relation to Empire building, as the forceful extension of a nation's authority by territorial conquest establishing economic and political domination of other nations. In its second meaning the term describes the imperialistic attitude of superiority, subordination and dominion over foreign peoples. Imperialism is often autocratic, e.g. in early 20th century Japan,[2] and sometimes monolithic [3] in character. While the term imperialism often refers to a political or geographical domain such as the Ottoman Empire[4] the British Empire,[5] or the Russian Empire,[6] etc, the term can equally be applied to domains of knowledge, beliefs, values and expertise, such as the empires of Science,[7][8] Christianity[9] or Islam.[10]
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Imperialism refers to an era during the 19th century after the Industrial Revolution when more industrialized Western nations, including those in Europe and the United States, took control of other non-industrialized nations, or colonies, around the globe. The primary motives of the Western nations can be grouped as political, economic, religious, ideological, and exploratory (Teachers' Curriculum Institute). Generally, Western nations took advantage of the pre-existing authority of local leaders (indirect rule) and/or exerted control through coercion and force (direct rule). In most cases, Western nations brought modernization and infrastructure developments to their colonies, but often at a high cost to the local people and their traditions. Eventually, most colonies either gained or were granted independence, but many of these new nations are still struggling to achieve stability and self-sufficiency as compared to the countries that used to control them during the Age of Imperialism. In this WebQuest, you will act as part of a delegation from an assigned country that was once a colony.
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Imperialism, in its most precise traditional usage, means the forcible extension of governmental control over foreign areas not designated for incorporation as integral parts of the nation. The term is commonly used to mean any significant degree of national influence, public or private, over other societies; but to some it refers principally to foreign economic exploitation with or without other actions. In all usages... the essential element is that one society must in some way impose itself upon another in a continuing unequal relationship. Thus, American expansionism dated from the beginning of the national experience, while its evolution into true imperialism occurred only in the later nineteenth century.
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Imperialism