Imperialism In The Twenty First Century

Winner of the first Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award for an original monograph concerned with the political economy of imperialism, John Smith's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a seminal examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization.Deploying a sophisticated Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities-the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, and the iPhone-and demonstrates how these generate enormous outflows of money from the countries of the Global South to transnational corporations headquartered in the core capitalist nations of the Global North. From there, Smith draws on his empirical findings to powerfully theorize the current shape of imperialism. He argues that the core capitalist countries need no longer rely on military force and colonialism (although these still occur) but increasingly are able to extract profits from workers in the Global South through market mechanisms and, by aggressively favoring places with lower wages, the phenomenon of labor arbitrage. Meticulously researched and forcefully argued, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a major contribution to the theorization and critique of global capitalism.

Provides an examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization. Deploying a Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities--the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, and the iPhone--and demonstrates how these generate enormous outflows of money from the countries of the Global South to transnational corporations headquartered in the core capitalist nations of the Global North. From there, Smith draws on his empirical findings to theorize the current shape of imperialism. He argues that the core capitalist countries need no longer rely on military force and colonialism (although these still occur) but increasingly are able to extract profits from workers in the Global South through market mechanisms and, by aggressively favoring places with lower wages, the phenomenon of labor arbitrage. --From publisher description.

Provides an examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization. Deploying a Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities--the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, and the iPhone--and demonstrates how these generate enormous outflows of money from the countries of the Global South to transnational corporations headquartered in the core capitalist nations of the Global North. From there, Smith draws on his empirical findings to theorize the current shape of imperialism. He argues that the core capitalist countries need no longer rely on military force and colonialism (although these still occur) but increasingly are able to extract profits from workers in the Global South through market mechanisms and, by aggressively favoring places with lower wages, the phenomenon of labor arbitrage. --From publisher description.

Perhaps no word today is used and misused more than globalization. It generally serves to refer to worldwide epoch-defining changes in the organization of societies, economies and politics. But as Petras and Veltmeyer demonstrate, the term globalization obscures much more than it reveals. In practice, globalization provides a cover for a new form of imperialist exploitation and the institution of US hegemony over a global process of capital accumulation. In the last decade, capitalists in Europe and the United States have created favourable conditions for the takeover and recolonization of economies across the developing world. International capital has managed to restore highly profitable returns on investments and operations as never before, creating islands of opulent prosperity within a sea of growing poverty and misery. In effect, this book argues that the terms globalization and imperialism are widely used as alternative frameworks for understanding the dynamics of the same worldwide developments and trends. Employing an imperialist analytical framework over that of globalization not only provides a better understanding but also points towards forces of resistance and opposition that through political action may bring about necessary change.

We live in a time of dynamic, but generally regressive regime change-a period in which major political transformations and a rollback of a half-century of legislation are accelerated under conditions of a prolonged and deepening economic crisis and a worldwide offensive against the citizenry and the working class. Written by two of the world’s leading left-wing thinkers, Imperialism and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century takes the form of a number of analytical probes into some of the dynamics of capitalist development and imperialism in contemporary conditions of a system in crisis. It is too early to be definitive about the form that capitalism and imperialism -and socialism-might be or is taking, as we are in but the early stages of a new developmental dynamic, the conditions of which are too complex to anticipate or grasp in thought; they require a closer look and much further study from a critical development and Marxist perspective. The purpose of this book is to advance this process and give some form to this perspective.

Imperialism is not something that is discussed in the capitalist media. But imperialist capitalism is the dominant reality of our era: a handful of rich Western countries dominate and are responsible for the misery of billions of human beings. And the decisive element in this system is the United States, the world's only superpower.In the two articles in this pamphlet, Doug Lorimer traces the main features of the development of the imperialist system through the 20th century and shows how the Marxist analysis of capitalism retains its essential validity in the era of "globalisation".

In a primary commodities boom spurred on by the rise of China, countries the world over are turning to the extraction of natural resources and the export of primary commodities as an antidote to the global recession. The New Extractivism addresses a fundamental dilemma faced by these governments: to pursue, or not, a development strategy based on resource extraction in the face of immense social and environmental costs, not to mention mass resistance from the people negatively affected by it. With fresh insight and analysis from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, this book looks at the political dynamics of capitalist development in a region where the neoliberal model is collapsing under the weight of a resistance movement lead by peasant farmers and indigenous communities. It calls for us to understand the new extractivism not as a viable development model for the post-neoliberal world, but as the dangerous emergence of a new form of imperialism.

Includes translation of Lenin's 1916 pamphlet, "Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism," with his 1917 and 1920 prefaces. Reprinted from Marxists Internet Archive, Lenin's selected works, Progress Publishers (1963), vol. 1, pp. 667-766.