Imperialism Today

Economic theories of imperialism were developed when (i) large corporations began to dominate production and markets, thereby bringing to an end the vision according to which economies expand endogenously by means of competitive accumulation in the Smithian and early Marxian sense (Sylos Labini, 1993), and (ii) the issue of surplus production and capital, connected to the phenomenon described in (i), began to seriously occupy the minds and action of policy-makers and related institutional bodies. In this respect the USA occupies a special place as it was a trail blazer in imperialism and its manifestation as a quest for markets and capital outlets. By the end of the nineteenth century Britain was already on its way to becoming a rentier-oriented economy and its main concern was how it could, using the crucial role of Indian net exports to the world in order to effect a transfer back to the British metropolis, manage international capital flows in order to deal with a deepening balance of payments deficit. In the same period, however, the USA’s concern centred on how to guarantee an appropriate level of international demand for its output. The latter was deemed to be chronically in excess of that required to meet domestic demand. The preoccupation was best expressed by the State Department in a memorandum dated 1898, the year of the American–Spanish War, which was to bring Washington into Asia through the occupation of the Philippines.