AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN IMPERIALISM [PDF]

EMMA BENZAL Department of Political Science and International Relations Law Faculty Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) [email protected]

POLITICS REVISITED: AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN IMPERIALISM AND GLOBALIZATION∗

Introduction Nowadays, due to the consensus reached over the main features of globalization, that is, once its causes are found and its characteristics clarified, the globalization debate seems to be in a deadlock. The theoretical debate, which at first presented globalization from different perspectives, has been dominated by an economic shaped interpretation that considers globalization a phenomenon characterized by the universalization of a liberal economic system born in the West whose final aim is its strengthening and perpetuation, and whose usual outcome is the global increase of economic and social inequalities. The main and almost only discussion over this subject is focused, then, on the analysis of the favourable or pernicious effects of this economic globalization, not on the questioning of its causes or nature, what makes us to believe that we are looking at a concluded phenomenon, at a status quo that we simply have to understand either to encourage or to avoid its results. In these circumstances, most globalization theorists simply pay attention to politics as a tool for resolving globalization economic disorders but they don not consider politics either the cause or one of its main characteristic elements worth of analysis. It is this concentration on the economic dimension and the oblivion of the political factors of the globalizing phenomenon what has led us to draw a parallel between the way of analysing it and the way of analysing nineteenth-century imperialism that appears at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both imperialism then and globalization today are understood as the result of economic forces peculiar to an exuberant capitalist system in which the weaker are used by the stronger for

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Paper submitted to the ECPR Joint Sessions to be held at Nicosia (25-30 April 2006). Work in progress; please do not cite, quote or distribute without permission from the author.

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the satisfaction of their needs. At that time and today the political forces and needs both of peoples and states weren’t more than the confirmation of a reality ruled by economics. However, after the first decades of the twentieth century, and especially in the middle of it, among those who study the causes and characteristics of imperialism appear some voices that point to the importance of the political elements both at the beginning and during the development of nineteenth-century imperialist phenomenon. These scholars begin to show the inconsistencies and theoretical errors of the economic explanations and solve them by recurring to a political analysis of imperialism. For them imperialism is no longer the answer to the economic needs of the Europeans but their way to tackle the rising of nationalisms in Europe, to settle the imbalances of the European power or even to deal with domestic political problems of the imperialist powers. The parallel drawn between imperialism and globalization explanations given their shared economic form allows us to propose, in the same way that in the past imperialism explanations were overcome by the resort to the analysis of its political elements, the use today of that method in order to solve the limitations of globalization explanations. In short, considering that there is an identity between the theoretical understanding of imperialism and globalization, the purpose of this paper is to propose an analysis of globalization that takes into account the analytical elements used in the study of imperialism with the final aim of overcoming the economic bias that dominates current interpretations of that phenomenon by means of retrieving the observation of its political dimension. To carry out this task we will use the historiographic analysis both of the theories of imperialism that arose during the twentieth century and the theories of globalization that followed them in the 60s and reached their peak in the 90s. Through the monitoring of their evolution we will extract the descriptive elements of all these explanations pointing to the parallels that can be drawn between both theoretical corpora, especially those related with their economic bias. The reactivation of the political analysis for the study of globalization taking into account the experience of its use for the study of imperialism will allow us, lastly, to reconsider the capacity of the developing countries to face this globalizing wave. If, up to now, the globalization process had an essentially economic nature, the instruments to tackle it couldn’t be others than the economic ones. Tariff control, import regulation measures, most favoured nation clauses and, in short, protectionism and the promotion of fair trade conditions, were the only weapons to place developing countries in a more competitive international situation. However, if we begin to understand that globalization is more than an economic process and we consider that the political is deeply involved in it, the instruments for the developing countries to achieve a more significant presence in the international arena will be ruled by classic power logics

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in which the economic elements are a fundamental but not an exclusive factor in order to possess dialogue and decision capabilities. Therefore, this paper will try to show that the introduction of a political analysis in the study of globalization its not only a more complete approach to this phenomenon but it allows developing countries, as well, to adopt a more precise course of action in order to achieve their own and egalitarian space in the international sphere. Theories of Imperialism Theories of imperialism, which, as we have already exposed, were formally born at the beginning of the twentieth century1, essentially try to explain imperialism causes. Their aim is to find out which factors determine the necessity of some peoples to dominate others, what circumstances turn equal relationships between states into unequal exchanges facilitated by the exercise of power of the stronger over the weaker. During that century diverse theories arise that can be classified in different groups according to their explanatory paradigm. Here we have distinguished five2: economic theories, sociological theories, political theories, peripheral theories and collaboration theories. Firstly, economic theories appear in 1902 as the forerunners of the theories of imperialism with J. A. Hobson’s work Imperialism: A Study3. In it Hobson shows how imperialism is the result of an accumulation of capital peculiar to an advanced capitalist system in which production is so high that its excess, not being able to be consumed by the people of the place where it is produced, has to be located where it can be absorbed and, therefore, where it can provide benefits, that is, overseas. To achieve that end we find, according to Hobson, two kinds of agents. On the one hand, those who have the direct capacity to run the imperialist enterprise –rulers, philanthropists, traders and soldiers-, on the other, those who act as its inducers –finance groups-. For him, though, the true promoters of imperialism are the latter since they use their power –especially their mediatic powerto manipulate the former for their purposes. That is why they are called by Hobson “the economic parasites of imperialism”. 1

The beginning of the theoretical study of imperialism is usually placed in the publication in 1902 of J. A. Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study (London, Allen & Unwin, 1968). Although we can find some approaches to the imperialist phenomenon prior to Hobson’s we really can say that it is from his work that imperialism is analysed from a theoretical perspective, using methodological tools specific to its study and providing the concept with a more precise and universal content. 2 This classification is based on the one established by D. K. Fieldhouse in Economics and Empire 1830-1914, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University, 1973. 3 Hobson, op. cit.

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Hobson thus joins up the concept of accumulation of capital, the underconsumption theory and the idea of the accumulation of power in the hands of finance groups in order to infer that imperialism is the final result of the economic needs of a particular group and has, therefore, an economic cause and economic nature4. With Hobson the economic study of imperialism begins, a type of study that will prevail during the first half of the twentieth century thanks mainly to the Marxist reinterpretation of some of its propositions and, especially, thanks to that one made by Lenin in his work Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism5. In this work Lenin uses the ideas of concentration, business cartelization and finance capital formation posed by Rudolf Hilferding6 in order to infer -once joined to Hobson’s idea of underconsumption derived from excessive accumulation of capital- that imperialism is just the monopolist stage of capitalism, the final stage of this economic system. According to Lenin, the growth peculiar to the capitalist system implies a process of concentration of production that entails the massive creation of industrial monopolies, cartels and trusts. This concentration of production is joined by the concentration of capital and, with it, by the formation of bank monopolies, whose merging with the former forms finance capitalism, that is, the securing of industrial power by the banks. This accumulation of power in the hands of immensely powerful monopolies of a hybrid nature turns the finance oligarchy –and not the market needs- into the one who decides that the destination of the accumulated capital will be those places where investment is more profitable, which means, given the saturation of home markets and the low costs of overseas markets, yet untouched, that capital will be invested abroad.

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We have to point out, however, that Hobson’s explanation has unjustly been categorized as solely economic since we find in it sociological elements that, in a way, make Hobson the predecessor of sociological theories of imperialism. When he questions the role of the relationship between the economic powers of society and the rest of social groups in the turn of a mere economic necessity into a national one and, especially, when he analyses the means of generating public opinion as weapons of imperialism, Hobson is actually placing himself in a position different to that of a purely economic analysis, even if this has not been sufficiently acknowledged by the subsequent theorists of imperialism. 5 Lenin, V. I., Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1975. 6 Hilferding in his work Finance Capital. A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), through the analysis of the capitalist economy of his time and, particularly, through the study of the effects of protectionism over it, deduced that the main feature of advanced capitalist systems was the increasing concentration and centralization of capital, with its final merging of bank capital and industrial capital forming finance capital. That finance capital, according to Hilferding, used protectionism –which had been devised for other purposesfor its own benefit, draining in this way the home market and having then to resort to overseas markets. Within the latter the monopolist situation of that finance capital allows it to trade in better conditions that permit it obtaining huge benefits, which are even more increased thanks to the collaboration of the state through its territorial control, that is, through imperialism. In this way, Hilferding infers that imperialism is no more than another manifestation of a capitalist system in which there is an ever increasing tendency to concentration and centralization of capital, elements that Lenin will use in his own analysis of imperialism.

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It is the constant repetition of this process all over the capitalist countries what leads to a highly competitive international economic system in which the territorial division completes the division of markets previously made by monopolies since capital exporters force conquest in order to facilitate non-competition and secure the optimal conditions for the maintenance of monopolies. That, finally, leads to imperialism. Imperialism for Lenin, then, is the monopolist stage of capitalism, the stage in which in all places where that system rules the state is managed in such way by the interests of finance capital that it forces the struggle for the control of territories, struggle that, when it reaches global dimensions, fosters the end of that same capitalist system. In this way, despite its purpose of not being a theoretic treatise –what is clearly stated by the author-, Lenin’s work it’s going to be the basis of economic theories of imperialism, getting to displace almost completely the works that inspired it and having a profound effect over the majority of subsequent theoretical production. Following this Leninist contribution to the economic interpretation of imperialism we also have to indicate the contribution made by Rosa Luxemburg and Nikolai Bukharin, theoretically much sounder but, however, less influential that the former. The importance of Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital7 rests in its study, never abandoning the economic analysis, of the political and historical conditions that permit the ever increasing accumulation of capital and, with it, imperialism. Luxemburg, thus, examines the process of accumulation of capital and shows how the added value, ever more taken away from workers, needs to be capitalized in order to contribute to that accumulation, what is done by way of resorting to overseas commerce since it presents, being in its greater part outside the capitalist system, inequality conditions that are profited to obtain a better capitalization of the surplus. But in order to achieve this inequitable exchange, Luxemburg reveals that it is essential for the economies abroad to have some level of development, as it will be impossible to commerce advantageously with primitive economies. It is here where imperialism shows up as a means to create overseas basic exchange conditions by urging, primarily, the creation of means of transport and the origination of consuming needs. Imperialism is, once more, turned into the political weapon of economy. Luxemburg, in this way, through a purely economic analysis of capitalism gets to offer a very elaborated exposition of the relationship between economics and politics which, in spite of

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Luxemburg, R., The Accumulation of Capital, New York and London, Modern Reader Paperbacks, 1968.

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being probably the more complete economic explanation of imperialism within Marxist orthodoxy, has been regrettably forgotten by subsequent economic theorists. As the last exponent of the economic interpretation of imperialism we will mention the work of Nikolai Bukharin Imperialism and World Economy8. In it Bukharin, although partially reproduces the preceding theoretical schemes, is focused on the study of finance capital behaviour inside the home market explaining how it finally controls every power field up to the top one, the state, urging the latter to use imperialism as a means to fulfil the economic interests of the former. Bukharin, thus, analyses the control dynamics of finance capital from the inside to the outside achieving a better description of the mechanisms that tie world economy to domestic economy and, in this way, even if at first sight its contribution may not seem very novel, he offers a bidirectional view of the functioning of finance capital that turns imperialism into a phenomenon that acts both in the interior and abroad. Imperialism, thus, in Bukharin’s scheme has a complete transformation capability that if, as in other instances, finally leads to its own destruction, it is not really because of a fratricidal international struggle but due to its alteration of the system as a whole. We have to add to all this the chief role that Bukharin assigns to war in this capitalist system dominated by finance capital. In the picture he draws, war –also a main character in other preceding analyses- turns into a main element of capitalism not only because it is the outcome of an increasing competition between capitalist powers but, primarily, because it is a sure instrument for capital increase, that is, because it is a highly profitable business for the capitalist. So far we have offered, then, those considered the fundamental economic theories of imperialism, theories that have marked this phenomenon’s historiography (and, as we will later see, globalization’s as well) up until today despite the subsequent efforts to mitigate its influence. The first of these efforts is the one made by Joseph Schumpeter who in his concise work Imperialism: Social Classes9 formulates what constitutes the sociological theory of imperialism. In this work Schumpeter analyses imperialism from an historical perspective going back to the first empires up to the nineteenth century and showing that imperialism is not the result of certain material needs but a residuum of a feudal past, an atavism that implies the repetition without a fixed purpose of the conquest policies of absolute monarchs. According to his position, thus, imperialism is a phenomenon of a solely sociological nature that only it is no longer the result of a capitalist economic system but, furthermore, it is contrary to capitalism since it implies more costs than benefits for the commercial classes.

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Bukharin, N. I., Imperialism and World Economy, London, Merlin Press, 1972. Schumpeter, J. A., Imperialism: Social Classes, New York, Meridian Books, 1958.

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In Schumpeter we find, then, an explanation of imperialism that not only denies its economic nature but, furthermore, involves an irrational element that breaks imperialism links with whatever objective element, and that allows it, unlike what it is considered by prior authors, to appear always and everywhere as long as a social system exists with some historic roots that permit the repetition of past behaviours. Schumpeterian sociological theory, besides being extremely thought-provoking, constitutes a radical alternative to the existing economic theories both because it introduces new variables into what it was until that moment a monocausal explanation of imperialism, and because it implies some humanization of that phenomenon since it is severed from the mere calculation of costs and profits. However, the complex empiric verification of this theory as well as its disconnection from capitalism have entailed an important obstacle for the development of this explanation and that explains why we usually find it more as an unavoidable complement for more general theories than as an individual theory. But the explanations that will mean a real revolution of the theories of imperialism and a more convincing response to the prevailing economic theories are those that appear from the 50s onwards, being the beginning of all them the controversial article of Robinson and Gallagher “The Imperialism of Free Trade”10. In this article published in 1953 these authors turn upside down the historiography of nineteenth-century imperialism by defending the concept of imperialism of free trade, concept that implies the radical questioning of the traditional link between imperialism and mercantilism. In Robinson and Gallagher’s proposal imperialism, thus, is no longer related with a given economic system and turns into a phenomenon continuous over time that has diverse manifestations. We find, then, two types of imperialism, one formal –the one traditionally analysed and up to now the only one considered- and other informal or imperialism of influence that is characterized by not requiring territorial acquisition and by limiting itself to indirect control essentially exercised by a commercial and technological supremacy. According to this scheme, then, imperialism has to be studied not only in its formal aspect – the only one taken into account up to this moment- but in all its manifestations and, especially, the causes that led one type of informal imperialism to a one of conquest must be analysed, what Robinson and Gallagher will implement by their study of British imperialism during the nineteenth century11. 10

Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R., “The Imperialism of Free Trade”, The Economic History Review, vol. VI, no. 1, 1953. Although the authors limit their analysis and conclusions to British imperialism, subsequent authors have turn it into a general theory of imperialism, causing Robinson and Gallagher’s work to be, not always reasonably, criticized for its

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According to them, thus, nineteenth-century British imperialism is characterized by its maintenance of a constant preference for informal imperialism, that is, a preference for securing safe trade conditions by means of recurring to its superiority –essentially commercial, but also political and cultural-. However, British also resorted to formal imperialism and the causes for this substitution of their initial preference are not, as previous authors said, a change in the economic paradigm or the appearance of new economic needs inside the British industrial society but the modification of advantageous local conditions in those places where Great Britain exercised its superiority as well as the alteration of the international order. The move of informal imperialism towards formal imperialism, then, is due to the inability to maintain supremacy peacefully, what compels to impose it by force12. Imperialism for Robinson and Gallagher, then, is no longer attached to economy not only because it is no more the inheritance of a given economic system but because its appearance no longer depends on economic conditions but on other type of factors. “The Imperialism of Free Trade” is the first successful effort to analyse imperialism from a different paradigm to the economic one and constitutes the starting point of a whole new historiography of imperialism that will give rise to the political theories of imperialism. However this work is still yet too economic13 having to wait to the also joint work of these authors, Africa and the Victorians, to see a decidedly political interpretation of imperialism. But “The Imperialism of Free Trade” has not only the virtue of having paved the way for the political interpretation of imperialism but one of its more important contributions -and, certainly, the one which can be the most relevant for the relationship that we will establish with the interpretations of globalization- is its assertion of imperialism continuity. The idea of continuity connected with the different manifestations of imperialism implies that there is not only one kind of dominance but different, more and less subtle, types, all of them needing to be studied. Imperialism, thus, is no longer a nude depredating weapon but turns into a whole set of interrelated elements acting for the subordination of the other, what makes it a much more complex phenomenon, no to mention more everlasting, to what prior authors claimed. allegedly universality. Even if some of these criticisms are correct since sometimes Robinson and Gallagher are tempted by generalization, I believe that the extension of their thesis to other cases different to the British is acceptable not only because of the material importance of British imperialism but because of the influence that this imperialism had in other nations’ imperialisms. 12 “British policy followed the principle of extending control informally if possible and formally if necessary” (Gallagher and Robinson, op. cit., p. 13). 13 Although when the authors talk about the resort to force to restore British prominence they are not only referring to the commercial prominence but to a superiority in broader terms, the truth is that from all their words one gathers that it is economics what finally bring about both one kind of imperialism and the other. That is why we assert the excessive economic nature of “The Imperialism of Free Trade” and we cannot defend that we are facing a wholly political interpretation of imperialism.

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As we have already stated, the important work of those same authors, Africa and the Victorians14, will be a more convincing effort to introduce the political variable in the explanation of imperialism. In this work Robinson and Gallagher, through the study of the causes that led the British to the occupation of Egypt in 1882, infer that the move towards formal imperialism of which they talked about in their previous article and that this occupation exemplifies, is the result of two factors –one direct and other indirect- of a strictly political nature: indirectly by the desire of Great Britain to protect its routes to India, and directly by the Egyptian socio-political conditions. It is the difficulty to maintain peacefully and without direct control the superiority that the British had exercised up to that moment all over the country –superiority that let them protect their trade routes to the East- due to the revolt leaded by the Egyptian army, what forces the British to turn their informal predominance into an effective presence in the country. It is the exogenous conditions, then, which give rise to imperialism, not a change in British objectives or needs, being the real purpose of the British during all that time to come back to the previous informal situation, also profitable but less costly for the taxpayers at home. To support their thesis Robinson and Gallagher fall upon the political element making an exhaustive analysis of what they call the “official mind”, that is, discourses, memoranda, minutes, etc. of British politicians of the time, as well as their personal correspondence, memoirs or biographies, considering that it is within this material where it can be found the real motives of Great Britain for resorting to formal imperialism. It is true –and this is one of the more frequent criticisms to the authors’ thesis- that the strategic factor, that in this material is pointed out as a motivation that explains imperialism, can be reconducted to economics, as the desire to protect eastern routes lastly implies an economic motivation and, therefore, its purely political nature it’s arguable. However, we have to understand that the explanation herein offered by Robinson and Gallagher is not only political because the direct and indirect factors that it points out are, at least at first sight, of a political nature but because the methodology used by them indicates that what is relevant for the understanding of the resort to formal imperialism is the analysis of those motivations that guided the actions of the people related to politics who took the decisions that led to it, not the drives or the behaviour of other actors. Although the motivation of the former, thus, can lastly be reconducted to economics, it is always going to follow the logic of political interest, which is different to that of the crude analysis of material costs and benefits characteristic of those who base their actions on mere economic motivation.

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Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J., with Denny, A., Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1981.

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But, in addition to the strategic element acting as a direct cause of British occupation of Egypt, in this work we find an element –already mentioned in “The Imperialism of Free Trade”that indirectly affected the rise of conquest imperialism: that of the internal situation of those places where the westerners maintained an informal presence. We can see that although, according to the authors, the strategic need to protect eastern routes guided British actions all along their imperial history, this need did not determined by itself the move towards formal imperialism, as it could be satisfied just by informal imperialism or supremacy without political control. It is, as we have already stated, the inability to maintain this informal relationship due to local socio-political changes what determines the resort to a formal imperialism in an effort to restore previous conditions. It is, then, this peripheral factor the true cause of imperialism. This explanation constitutes the beginning of what is called the peripheral or eccentric theory of imperialism which opens a whole new research agenda that places the causes of imperialism outside the West and that, in this way, tries to avoid the Eurocentrism of prior explanations. The peripheral explanation will be later complemented by Robinson in his article “NonEuropean Foundations of European Imperialism: A Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration”15. In it he develops the idea that exogenous causes of imperialism are to be found not only in this peripheral factor of changes in local socio-political conditions but, also, in changes in interpersonal relationships established between colonizers and colonized. According to him, it is not possible to believe that imperialism –whether in its informal version or in its formal one- could succeed without the help of local societies, and that is why he introduces the idea that there was among those societies people who cooperated with westerners in their imperialist task profiting from their presence either to maintain their status or to improve socially. Imperialism, thus, whose success had always been related to the actions of the imperialist actor, owes its achievements and failures as well to the cooperation with the subjugated peoples. According to this scheme, then, informal imperialisms rests on collaboration in order to maintain its supremacy relationships without political control, being the lost of collaborative elements the reason of the move towards formal imperialism, in which collaboration with the imperialist subject is achieved by force. The final result of all this is that the inability to find collaborators either peacefully or by force determines, according to the author, decolonizing processes. In this occasion, even though imperialism is once more determined by circumstances external to the imperialist actor, Robinson goes further in the peripheral explanation since he

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In Owen, R. and Sutcliffe, B., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, London, Longman, 1980.

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connects the results of westerners’ imperialist actions with the needs of that people subjected by imperialism capable of being satisfied by that same system of subjection. It is, then, systematized a theory dependent of the peripheral one that poses a very relevant approach to the subject since it includes as active actors people that, up to this moment, were only conceived as passive subjects without decision capabilities. From Robinson and Gallagher’s work and their political approach to imperialism onwards a whole historiography that places imperialism causes in elements far away from the economic needs of European countries begins. These explanations, which usually start from the analysis of the last quarter of the nineteenth century imperialism and frequently from the study of the causes of African partition, introduce, as well, other political factors explaining imperialism different to the strategic and peripheral elements previously shown. There are essentially three elements that these new theoretical lines point out as causes of imperialism. On the one hand, there is a thesis that defends that imperialism was the result of a restructuring of European power balance. Imperialism, thus, was no more that the reflection abroad of intra-European tensions that could not be settled in Europe as that would mean the outbreak of war in a continental scale. European powers, with their colonial gains and losses, therefore, got to position themselves at a European level without risking too much. On the other hand, a different thesis -although very close to the latter- states that imperialism is really the result of rising nineteenth-century nationalisms, which got to be satisfied through imperial growth. Related to this nationalist factor we find as well the idea of imperialism as a prestige policy, that is, as a means to place the nation in a prominent position over others, which is exemplified by French imperialism, for some the means to retrieve French lost prominence over Germany. Lastly, these explanations are joined by one very close to the strategic one that considers imperialism the result of the defensive action to protect already existing imperialist possessions from the attacks from bordering territories. There are also some explanations that, without being strictly political, are referred to noneconomic elements that have to be considered too in any analysis of imperialism, elements that are normally forgotten given their complex analysis and, especially, their dubious theoretical relevance. We are talking about those that place imperialism causes in the personal actions and motivations of the people that had decision capabilities within the imperialist process and, especially, those of the European men on the spot. These explanations consider that imperialism was not a general project conceived and run by the metropolis but a set of different individual actions of an imperialist nature that had to be later endorsed by the latter, giving, thus, the whole set a coherence it initially lacked.

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We have observed how sociological, political, peripheral and collaboration theories have tried to overcome the explanatory limitations of first economic theories and, even if they also have deficiencies that should be surmounted, they are still useful to understand more completely a phenomenon that we have the feeling is much more complex to what economic theories thought. However, it is still unquestionable that it is the latter the ones that have managed to monopolize the theoretical production of imperialism, having much more support and relevance that the rest of other alternative explanations, and a case in point is that a phenomenon such as globalization is still widely explained from this same economic paradigm. This is due, in my opinion, not to its better explanatory capability but essentially to its relentless and brilliant simplicity and to its easier subjection to empirical testing, as well as that thanks to them –and in many cases in spite of themthe political capability of change is denied. Thereby, one explanation of imperialism/globalization that lingers solely on its economic aspects might be much more understandable and demonstrable but would, obviously, be approaching the subject in a partial way and would, then, be less explanatory that the one that emphasizes political elements, much more rich and varied, besides being implicitly denying transformation capabilities to the vast majority. Once the theories of imperialism are presented we proceed to analyse the characteristics of globalization theories. As we will se below, there are very important parallels between the explanation of the imperialist phenomenon and the explanation of globalization, especially, as we have already shown, the importance that both give to the economic element as a descriptive aspect of both phenomena. These parallels will let us later use the political resources that the theories of imperialism employed to overcome their economic bias to surmount the same deficiencies of globalization explanations. Globalization Theories Globalization explanations begin in the 60s as an effort to reveal the causes and describe the characteristics of an internationalization process apparently without precedents that implied the increasing interdependence between world countries. From 1960 up until today there have been many efforts to explain globalization from many perspectives, especially during the 90s. Trying to describe all of them in a precise way is a task that would go beyond the scope of this work but it can be useful for our comparative purposes to simply resort to the classifications of the existing globalization explanations made by, on the one hand, Held and McGrew and, on the other, by Shirato and Webb. 12

Held and McGrew in their introductory chapter to the globalization debate16 differentiate between “globalist” and “sceptic” authors. According to them, sceptics deny the existence of globalization as they consider it no more than an ideological artefact that hides the aim to impose a liberal project, a concept made to convince citizenship of the inevitability of globalization process achieving, thus, its success. They defend that the global is no more than a new name given to the international as it really is the state who still holds power in this field and who still has an acting capability, not being, then, this picture we face today different to that one we already knew. According to Held and McGrew, therefore, sceptics join up Marxist interpretations, that see in globalization a new form of imperialism as both the latter as the former are the result of capitalist needs, with realist positions, that see the state as the only capable of establishing the regulation of international relations. For globalists, however, globalization is a novel phenomenon that, even if they acknowledge is inserted in a continuum with the past, has special characteristics that turn it into something different to any previous global tendency. The exponents of this point of view, besides, according to Held and McGrew, consider that globalization has an effect over many fields beyond the economic one and, therefore, has to be analysed also in its political, social and cultural elements. This means that globalization, far from being a fiction, really implies a whole restructuring both of social relationships and territorial parameters and even the concept of power itself. Globalists, then, see in globalization a true transformation of the international reality that, even if it can be questioned in its results or consequences, it cannot be questioned in its existence. Although sceptics and globalists worries are the same ones, in most cases their positions are conflicting. Held and McGrew show the existing differences between them paying attention to five questions: Nation-state power, culture, economy, inequality and the definition of political community and political order. According to them, for the sceptics power in a globalized world is still in the hands of states as it is within them where the decisions important for the citizenship are taken and where the latter really satisfies its aspirations. Sceptics acknowledge that internationalization/globalization implies some lost of state sovereignty as states are limited by their international needs, but that does not mean that it is outside them where domestic politics are decided. The state still has power because it is the recipient of politics and, therefore, it is it the one that has the capability to choose the future of its community.

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Held, D. and McGrew, A., “The Great Globalization Debate: An Introduction”, in Held, D. and McGrew (eds.), The Global Transformations Reader. An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003.

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For globalists, however, globalization implies so hard an impact of multiple transnational factors over states choices that this supposes a total transformation of state power. Neither the state nor the community that it includes can, in this state of things, still be defined in classical terms of the understanding of power. As for the impact of globalization over culture, sceptics also consider that culture and cultural identity are produced within the state and that the increase of information of other cultures that globalization allows only implies an accentuation of differences and, with it, a harder defence of cultural particularities. Globalists consider that if culture is a construct and, therefore, national culture was created in order to foster nation-states consolidation, it is perfectly feasible that today’s globalization causes a cultural transformation at the service of the globalized system. The fierce internationalization of the communications system, ruled, furthermore, by multinational companies finally causes the elimination of the territorial element as a cultural determining factor and manages to create a nonstate international culture. Even in the economic aspect of globalization globalists and sceptics disagree. For the sceptics global economy is nor as new or as global as it is alleged. Since states are still the ones that take the fundamental decisions within their territorial limits, economic policy is also in their hands and, therefore, it still is an essentially domestic issue. They do not deny, however, that an internationalizing economic process exists that implies the creation of regional economic units, although in this process the state is the main actor and international economic organizations act as a tool for its individual economic policy, not as a power above it. For globalists, the magnitude of economic globalization has no precedent. The main role played by multinationals, the new international division of labour, the rising power of international economic institutions, besides other factors, have led today’s world economy to achieve a proportion and level of integration that implies that no country in the world can be outside the dispositions of the global economic system, being the state systems, then, necessarily subordinated to international influences. The subject of today’s international inequality, for its part, does not give rise to differences between the sceptic and the globalist positions as for its existence. Their dissension rests on who they consider guilty of rising inequalities and what must be the solution to them. In this respect, sceptics consider that economic internationalization has widened the gap between poor and rich countries, being the former ever more subordinated to the necessities of the latter through a neo-imperialist dominance that reminds of past epochs. For the socialist point of view, the solution to this new oppression is the elimination of the capitalist system and the 14

imposition of socialism; for the realist one, moreover, any solution is no more than a utopia as, according to it, international inequalities are a structural element of international order that cannot be removed. Globalists of a neoliberal stand, on the one hand, see economic globalization as a way of eliminating conflict in the long run, as the interconnection of necessities necessarily leads to stability and order and naturally balances inequalities. For a social democratic perspective, on the other hand, inequalities can be overcome but not by the mere self-adjustments of the system but by the generation of a global justice and a global solidarity. One last issue that, according to Held and McGrew, globalists and sceptics pay attention to is the definition of political community and political order in a globalized world. As it should be expected, for sceptics political community has still to be defined according to state criteria. Political order, then, is determined by the limited community it represents, being its aim to defend and promote the values, objectives and characteristics of that community, all of which depend on the shape acquired by it all along its history. For globalists, on the contrary, political community has no limits because the identities that define it are multiple and non-territorial. Political order, then, has to satisfy this variety and, therefore, it cannot be circumscribed to the limits of the nation-state as this would mean denying their citizens the necessary skills to survive in a globalized world. Shirato and Webb in their book also dedicated to the analysis of the present debate of globalization17, although they essentially are based on Held and McGrew’s classification –the difference between them rests basically in their use of a different literature- they introduce into the categorization of globalization one group of explanations towards which Held and McGrew do not seem to pay too much attention: the one related to the immaterial aspects of globalization. This kind of explanations, that we can call “culturalists”, among which it can be found, for instance, those given by Bourdieu, Bauman or, even, Hardt and Negri –although the latter are only included by these authors in Marxists explanations-, refer to non-formal aspects of the exercise of the globalized power, that is, to those elements that, coming from a given external power system, are inserted in such a manner into the way individuals self-define themselves that it makes them believe that they are coming from their interior. According to these explanations globalization produces a non-questioned socio-cultural system that is incorporated by the individuals in an unconscious manner and, thanks to this unconsciousness, globalization is eternally reproduced. Arts, television, mass media, consuming habits, are the tools for the establishment of an essentially

17

Shirato, T. and Webb, J., Understanding Globalization, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, SAGE, 2003.

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neoliberal globalized power that uses a kind of discourse and a language that turns economic needs into natural needs of the individual, achieving from him one kind of subjection that, it is not only not consider as such, but it is desired as beneficial. The system is, thus, extremely effective since in it the idea of struggle is completely denied as it is not feasible to act against something one is not aware of its existence. “Culturalist” explanations, then, reveal that globalization acts over the material system in which the individuals exist as well as over themselves, and they consider that it is more relevant for the success of the process the impact that it has over people’s cognitive system that over its external reality. Imperialism and Globalization Theories in a Comparative Perspective. Politics Revisited As we have seen, globalization theories, both in their sceptic or globalist aspect, and contrary to what theories of imperialism essentially did, seem to be focused on the effects of the globalizing process and not on the explanation of its causes. We have seen that theorists’ worries lie in the so-called globalization transformations, both of the international system as whole and of each of its components, but the subject of what causes such transformation is not questioned: the massive internationalization of a capitalist international system of a neoliberal sort. It is the generalization of a capitalist economic system what causes, according to globalists, state power dilution, the imposition of a culture that overcomes traditional identity barriers, the increase of differences between the countries in the centre and the countries in the periphery and the establishment of a supranational political power; and, according to sceptics, it is capitalism survival throughout time and, with it, its indissoluble link to the configuration of the international system itself what, although not causing great transformations over the latter, determines some of its characteristics and imposes some of its guidelines. Both the transformations derived from the globalizing process and the lack of them are, then, kept within a framework of internationalization of an economic system that is not questioned. Even the explanations we have labelled as “culturalists” start from that extension of a neoliberal economic system. As we have already stated, those explanations are focused on the analysis of the immaterial aspects of globalization, that is, on those elements for the extension of the global system that, without being perceived by the individuals, are suitable for making them assume in an unconscious manner the reality and inevitability of that system. However, in order to successfully achieve their aims these immaterial elements need a material medium that, once more, is favoured by the neoliberal capitalist system. The creation and, especially, the spreading of the 16

globalization discourse need the media, technology, means of transport, urbanization systems, etc., which, necessarily, lead us to the economic world. We see that regarding to the analysis of its causes, then, globalization theories are all of them inserted in the economic paradigm, what, by itself, permits us to draw a parallel between them and the economic explanations of imperialism. But, furthermore, in the analysis of its effects many interpretations are as well –sometimes even without wanting it- economic biased. This is what happens both with globalist and Marxist-sceptic positions, which describe the outcome of the globalizing process in almost identical terms that those used by the economic theorists of imperialism. In this sense, those explanations consider that the extension of capitalism that defines globalization is implemented essentially by production units ever bigger and more concentrated – multinationals-, in which all productive branches tend to accumulate and in which, very often, industrial capital and finance capital merge. Pressures from these very powerful multinationals make the state either used or weakened what, in every case, leads it to take as its own the interests of the former losing, thus, its traditional supremacy. The fact that the state turns, in this way, into a tool for the needs of multinationals leads to an international division of labour that implies the assignment of different productive roles to countries according to their position in the international hierarchy. The globalized world, then, is at the same time connected by a universal economic system and fractioned by the material needs of that same system. Besides, the role assigned today to finance capital in the globalizing process is central. Freedom of capital flows is considered one of the main characteristics of globalization and one of the main causes of inequality that, according to globalists, turns it into a phenomenon without precedents. This alleged singularity is nourished by the fact that technological advances today eliminate time and space limits, allowing transactions to be made at any time and from whichever place to the remotest spot18. As we can verify, this account of the globalizing process highly resembles the imperialism explanations offered by Hobson, Lenin, Hilferding, Bukharin and Luxemburg at the beginning of the twentieth century. We can try to read the section dedicated to the description of the economic theories of imperialism without mentioning the name of the authors who elaborated them. Certainly, it will be difficult for us to discern if we are talking about the end of the nineteenth century or about the present-day. The idea of a search for markets where the realization of capital can be more 18

These technological elements as well as the financial one, however, were also part of the definition of nineteenthcentury imperialism. It is unquestionable that the bulk and speed of current transactions and communications cannot be compared in quantitative terms to those of the nineteenth century. However, that is not an obstacle to assert that, at their time, technological progress and the extension of financial activity were qualitatively as novel and as revolutionary for nineteenth-century society.

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profitable, of production concentration and monopolization, of an international division of labour, of the indissoluble connection between domestic and external economies and, most of all, the assumption that finance groups play a prominent role in all theses processes –basic points of the economic theories of imperialism- are considered the elemental effects of almost any explanation of globalization. But this parallel between imperialism theories and globalization theories can be taken one step further. We can, thus, consider that globalization is not only defined in very similar terms to those of imperialism but, besides, that it can show, as well as the latter, informal and formal aspects. Most of these explanations of globalization pay only attention to its informal side. In this sense, globalization is a process of extension of a capitalist economic system that for its attainment does not need any formal control exercised by some power centre as it works simply by the activity of multidirectional economic flows that cut across different networks. Behind this aseptic conception of the process, however, there is an idea of imposition that, if not every theorist of globalization, many of them, and, certainly, the “culturalist” ones state. In the first place, thus, economic flows are neither launched in every direction, nor their intensity or, moreover, their content is the same wherever they come from and wherever they are directed to. Behind every finance or trade transaction we can find power positions that make those more powerful to obtain more benefits with fewer risks whereas the less powerful play the game with much more difficulties and less profits. But, furthermore, in the second place, globalization success requires a whole deployment of immaterial power that make the individuals subjected to prior formal power being unconscious of their subjection. As we saw, globalization generates a discourse whose aim is to make it considered inevitable and, most of all, beneficial, so its vocabulary cannot even permit the discussion over its existence and/or pertinence. Globalization in its informal aspect, then, implies the superiority of forces (that most accounts consider of a business nature while for the realist ones are of a state kind) that impose themselves over the masses causing all sorts of effects –economic as well as non-economic- without resorting to force. As well as in informal or free trade imperialism, it is this mere superiority which gets to enforce not declared dominance relationships that imply a worldwide imposition of economic as well as political, social and cultural conditions by these powers. Moreover, globalization also implies –and this aspect is taken into account more by the realist part of the sceptic position- the imposition of power in formal terms. As it happened when informal imperialism moved towards formal imperialism, thus, it is when informal elements for the internationalization of the capitalist model just described fail when it is resorted to force and 18

political control. When those economic flows and those immaterial elements that allow a “peaceful” globalization do not achieve their aims or are not enough for their achievement that informal superiority of which we talked about gives way to measures of coercive imposition of the globalizing project by those who hold that superior position. Thus, military interventions, international embargoes, retaliation, and other pressure measures that imply the exercise of formal power by states in a superior position over other weaker states, are tools either of imposition or of restoring of a model that is not peacefully accepted. Even if many authors seem to have separated this kind of state behaviour from the general process, as if it were the remains of a past in which power politics principles ruled but alien to current behaviour patterns, they are perfectly recognizable and frequent conducts that need to be considered as part of the globalizing project as they are at its service and shape part of its nature. This move from a globalization by informal means towards a globalization by formal means, moreover, as it happened with imperialism, has to be understood as motivated by political reasons, not by economic ones. Those authors that, from a globalist point of view, are prepared to assume that there are formal means of imposition of the globalizing project, can get to acknowledge that those means respond to economic reasons, but not that they respond to political matters. For them any method of imposition by force of the characteristic elements of globalization is necessarily a consequence of the failure of the economic project as it is the latter which defines globalization. Only the realist authors are able to consider, as they already do in its informal aspect, that globalization in its formal facet involves state political motivations. As they consider that globalization, if it is accepted, is inserted in a state international system in which states are still the ones who adopt the fundamental decisions both domestically and outwards, realists can perfectly assume that any force measure exercised by the state motivated by the globalizing process responds to its political needs. It is especially within this proposal of a political motivation of the move from an informal globalization towards a formal globalization where the relevance of the political analysis of this phenomenon is inserted. Of course, we must also question if globalization in its informal aspect has an exclusive or mostly economic origin, and we have done it when we talked above about the economic bias of globalization explanations. The imposition of a global system does not only come from past globalizing movements, whose motivations where manifold, not only economic, but, besides, as we have seen, the extension of the capitalist system that globalization implies leads to the imposition of political and socio-cultural measures that go beyond the economic realm and that often determine the process direction in a greater extent than the economic needs themselves.

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However, where the relevance of the political is undoubted is within the use of formal mechanisms of imposition of the globalizing project due to the failure of its informal extension. In this sense, we can once again draw a parallel with the theories of imperialism. As we saw, the theories that proposed a political interpretation of that phenomenon considered that the movement towards formal imperialism was determined by political factors of different kinds – strategic, peripheral, related with the lost of collaboration, with the restoration of international power balance, with prestige and with nationalisms19- not by economic factors. Today we can possibly find some political factor different to these as a means to restore the informal balance of globalization but what it is unquestionable is that all of them can be found at present time. Furthermore, we can say that behind many of the formal measures of globalization almost all or all of these factors can be found at the same time. In this sense Anglo-American military intervention in Iraq is an example of a coercive measure to restore status quo in which, besides the economic factors, we can find strategic ones and those of restoration of the international order, of prestige and nationalist factors. Classical political factors, then, which until the rising of globalization determined international political behaviour of the state to be forgotten after then, are still present today. Their relevance has been denied by the monopoly of an economic discourse that has only conceived globalization in economic terms both in its causes and in its characteristics but, once confirmed that globalization responds to other factors and contains other elements, we must admit that politics are still valid20. It is imperative today, then, for the analysis of globalization to both retrieve a political vocabulary it has forgotten or has relegated to a second level and to start to incorporate a methodology of the official mind that is only currently taken into account when it ratifies the economic propositions but not when it acts aside or above them. 19

There are, as well, other past theoretical proposals that can be also transposed to the present-day that complement the previous ones, as the sociological and the individualistic ones. From a sociological perspective, as we believe there is a connection between globalization and globalizing movements of the past, we can consider that there is an historical repetition of a dominance of an international kind that may have to do with the survival needs of a particular class. Globalization, then, can also be considered an atavism. And from an individualistic perspective, for its part, globalization today is the product too of the individual decisions and motivations of persons with decision capabilities who act aside from the masses. Especially, the exercise of force measures in order to impose a globalizing project it is many times the result of a personal decision and not of a particular political project. The incorporation of these factors, however, is very complex and needs a more exhaustive analysis although here we must assert its usefulness when they are used in conjunction with the political factors. 20 In fact, both globalists and “culturalists”, the former in their effort to analyse the impact of globalization over the main aspects of the international sphere, and the latter in their study of the immaterial power of globalization, are incorporating other elements besides the economic ones. Their economic bias, as we have pointed out, rests essentially in the fact that their contributions start from the unquestioned assumption of a reality marked by the neoliberal capitalist model, so they are themselves highly determined by economics. We can say the same thing about the Marxist-sceptic explanations. Only the realist explanations of globalization are closer to the political analysis but, in doing so from the questioning of the concept of globalization itself we cannot say that they are contributing with a new analysis but that they are denying the relevance of any kind of analysis. All of them, then, need to revisit politics.

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In this way, once confirmed the parallels between the analysis of nineteenth-century imperialism and the analysis of globalization, we have recovered the lessons provided by the theoretical thought over imperialism to deal with the study of globalization. We have verified that, as well as it happened with imperialism, globalization understanding has an economic bias that needs to be overcome and, given the similarity between the problems, we have decided to give them the same solutions. Thus, our proposal has lied in claiming the validity today of political factors as determinants of globalization, especially in what we have called its formal aspects. With it we have not pretended, however, to banish the economic variable from the analysis. Possibly, in trying to show the shortages of the theoretical scene today, we have been obliged to overemphasize our denial of economic factors although, of course, we consider them extremely relevant. It is true, however, that we do not share the idea that they are more relevant than in the past. As we have pointed out, changes of an economic nature today may have a quantitative level different to that of the past but qualitatively they are as relevant in the present day as they were back then. In short, the retrieval of the political allows us, without abandoning the economic aspects of globalization, to see it no longer as a mere constant and aseptic international flow of economic elements but to consider it as subsumed in a power logic that implies its much more complex nature. Especially, the political will let us to no longer consider acts of force excrescences of the system that are inexplicable within the context of a globalized world but see them as elements integrated in it that serve this system as tools for its survival. Prospects for the Developing Countries Possibly such a theoretical analysis as the one we have developed here can rise doubts about its usefulness for the developing countries. However, as the understanding of reality determines it, our purpose is to show that the fact that globalization is mostly understood as an economic internationalization process without limits is to create a partial determination of reality that has had and still has an effect on the situation of the developing countries within the international sphere. The superiority of an economic globalization discourse has led to a determinist and teleological definition of reality that has implied the docile acceptation of many conditions as they were considered inevitable. As the “culturalist” analyses of globalization showed, its success rests in its use of immaterial tools of dominance that make it to be assumed as an essentially beneficial and, above all, unavoidable process. In this way, a monolithic thought, a universal language, is 21

imposed which turns the existent into the only thing possible and denies, thus, the capability of transformation. Globalization understood in this way, then, has led the developing countries to interpret their state of subjection as their “natural” condition. In a world ruled by market norms what is normal is to find a hierarchy marked not by power but by progress criteria and, in that state of things, developing countries, by the fact of being in the way of achieving progress but having not achieved it yet, are placed in a lower position on the chart. Their subordination, then, is inserted in the ordering scheme of the system. But, furthermore, this idea of progress that goes with the economic explanation of the globalizing phenomenon implies that subjection is the necessary step to achieve growth, and this makes it not only accepted as unavoidable but also because it is compulsory in order to aspire to an improvement of one’s own situation. According to all this, if resistance capability is not fully eliminated at least it is substantially lowered. In short, the prevailing view of globalization has implied the disempowerment of many forces that are currently not able to make changes within the system and that are even unconscious of the necessity of those changes. Furthermore, among those who still consider that an alternative is needed the failure of the socialist projects has generated even a higher pessimism; the fact that those projects are inserted in the same economic logic that defines globalization makes their failure strengthen the idea of the superiority of the capitalist project. We consider, therefore, that an understanding of globalization that includes the political elements not only allows us to have a more complete view of the phenomenon but also provides us with a capacity now denied. Of course, the fact of taking into account the political factors of globalization does not imply that this one stops having a universal aim or stops having the purpose of getting to be the one and only unavoidable project, but it entails that its purposes need to be connected with power and dominance elements that permit its questioning. The retrieval of the political, then, if it does not eliminate hierarchies and subordinations from the international system, at least shows us that these are determined by requirements different to the economic ones and, therefore, the position in the chart is settled differently. A more political view of globalization, in short, means to assume that the internationalization project that it implies is a project in which the ideas of national greatness, balance of power or strategy are still valid and this entails that any possible alternative to it has to take into account those concepts in addition to the strictly economic ones. It is unquestionable that, notwithstanding all that, within this new scene in which power politics have again a significance the perspectives for the developing countries are not very promising either as their position is still one of subjection. However, at least here their capability of 22

participation in the future of the process is admitted. Although the fact that different sorts of political factors besides the economic ones take part in globalization does not increase their chances of success because that means to place them in a different position, what is true is that the possibilities of action are multiplied by any additional factor we add. The climbing to the top is still hard but the ways to reach it are more than one. We have to point out finally that, even if all this approach seem to suggest that globalization needs to be resisted by the developing countries, we cannot deny that obviously globalization has also beneficial effects that do not need to be defied. Our purpose is not so much, then, to deny that globalization has virtues as to point out that its imperatives cannot be decided unilaterally and forever under the argument that there are no more alternatives. There are transformation possibilities but they require the use of instruments that have been considered invalid in order to promote the success of the process. Conclusion All along this work we have verified that imperialism and globalization theories very similarly define two allegedly different phenomena. Perhaps we cannot assert a whole identity between imperialism and globalization but, as Robinson and Gallagher showed their colleagues that imperialism is a continuous phenomenon with different intensities, this lesson can be used by us today in order to draw at least a continuity between both that implies that globalization is one additional manifestation within a dominance continuum. Although quantitative differences –in intensity, therefore- of both processes are unquestionable, qualitative ones are not so marked. At the end of the nineteenth century, as today, imperialism contemporaries believed that it was an economic expansion phenomenon without precedents that, in its positive aspect, produced benefits for all and brought progress virtues everywhere and, in its negative one, meant the subjugation of some peoples by others. In that moment, as well as today, even if there were some voices critical with the process its economic nature was not questioned either. It had to be the historians of the middle of the twentieth century who revealed the true nature of imperialism and who showed that the latter was extremely complex and multivariable, referring to the necessity of leaving aside its economic aspects in order to take more into account its political factors. We do not think that we need to wait until globalization has turned into an historical relic to achieve their same conclusion. We have suggested that the lessons from the past can be profited today to understand the variety of the globalizing process, lessons that can be used, furthermore, by 23

the most unfavoured ones to surmount their limitations and to turn into actors able to take decisions over their future. That is why we have proposed to overcome the economic bias of today’s globalization explanations, as the economic bias of past theories of imperialism was, by the analysis of its political elements, considering that with it we can provide those subjected by the globalizing process with acting capabilities that the process itself, in its partial nature, has denied them. Bibliography Bauman, Z., Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1998 Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L., “On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason”, Theory, Culture and Society, vol. I, no. 16, 1999 Bukharin, N. I., Imperialism and World Economy, London, Merlin Press, 1972 Fieldhouse, D. K., Economics and Empire 1830-1914, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University, 1973 Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R., “The Imperialism of Free Trade”, The Economic History Review, vol. VI, no. 1, 1953 Hardt, M. and Negri, A., Empire, Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2000 Held, D. and McGrew, A., “The Great Globalization Debate: An Introduction”, in Held, D. and McGrew (eds.), The Global Transformations Reader. An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003 Hilferding, R., Finance Capital. A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 Hobson, J. A., Imperialism: A Study, London, Allen & Unwin, 1968 Lenin, V. I., Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline, Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1975 Luxemburg, R., The Accumulation of Capital, New York and London, Modern Reader Paperbacks, 1968 Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J., with Denny, A., Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1981 Robinson, R., “Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration”, in Owen, R. and Sutcliffe, B., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, London, Longman, 1980 Schumpeter, J. A., Imperialism: Social Classes, New York, Meridian Books, 1958 Shirato, T. and Webb, J., Understanding Globalization, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, SAGE, 2003 24