imperialism

[TremulousTetra]

Imperialism.
The exploitation of a lands people and resources in the interests of the imperialist.
That does not mean some people in those exploited lands do not benefit, and those exploited lands general people do not receive benefit.
But at the end of the day, the imperialist acts out of profit. Not benevolence.
And there has been no exploited land who has not wanted freedom, from the imperialist.
This desire for freedom is immortal. There is not a story from history or fiction that is not about freedom from imperialism. Freedom.

Is this an adequate way to describe imperialism to a conservative?

 

[Idaho]

Thanks. Very informative.

 

[kebabking]

Nah - it started well, but then decended into a hallmark card.

You need to look at both the mechanisms of exploitation, as well as the mechanisms of enforcing compliance.

Co-option, use of force etc...

 

[Yugoslav]

From a conservative socialist point, imperialism is utilized funnily by both the classical liberal capitalists and the progressive liberal capitalists (a.k.a "SocDems"). Yes. Social democrats are imperialists because in order to fund their welfare capitalist state, they rely on exploiting third-world nations. Both are the same in terms of making everyone around them poor except that social democrats are unironically as nationalistic as the classical fascists because their welfare nation is to be better than the broke and failed third-world nations that they rely on to fuel their "social democratic welfare" economy, hence the term "social fascism" makes more sense when we analyze it this way.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Imperialism.
The exploitation of a lands people and resources in the interests of the imperialist.
That does not mean some people in those exploited lands do not benefit, and those exploited lands general people do not receive benefit.
But at the end of the day, the imperialist acts out of profit, not benevolence.
Privileging ethnic/religious minorities has been a major feature of imperialisms co-option of ruling elites/standing armies, used by the imperialist in controlling indigenous peoples through economic and military force. And revenge by exploited peoples against those privileged minorities has been a common feature when the imperialism has collapsed.
Being under control of imperialists often does lead to peace, technological, infrastructure and social development, benefits, but they are a spin-off of the imperialist maximising exploitation of the lands people and resources, rather than the aim of the imperialist.
So whilst there may be voices from ex-colonies lamenting the collapse of imperialism in their exploited land, hardly any have not fought against imperialism.

 

[danny la rouge]

This is what I’d hoped for! Can we lock these threads for all but this pair? And make them invisible? Cheers, @mods

 

[Yugoslav]

Imperialism.
The exploitation of a lands people and resources in the interests of the imperialist.
That does not mean some people in those exploited lands do not benefit, and those exploited lands general people do not receive benefit.
But at the end of the day, the imperialist acts out of profit, not benevolence.
Privileging ethnic/religious minorities has been a major feature of imperialisms co-option of ruling elites/standing armies, used by the imperialist in controlling indigenous peoples through economic and military force. And revenge by exploited peoples against those privileged minorities has been a common feature when the imperialism has collapsed.
Being under control of imperialists often does lead to peace, technological, infrastructure and social development, benefits, but they are a spin-off of the imperialist maximising exploitation of the lands people and resources, rather than the aim of the imperialist.
So whilst there may be voices from ex-colonies lamenting the collapse of imperialism in their exploited land, hardly any have not fought against imperialism.

I recently dug on the Burkina Faso and Thomas Sankara. Under Sankara, Burkina Faso broke ties with France and the neoliberal IMF. There was no mention of Burkina Faso's alignment with the Soviet bloc. During Sankara, Burkina Faso improved a lot. It had self-reliance on food, it planted 10 million trees to combat desertification, healthcare and education improved, most of the projects were done by own labor without much foreign investment. Burkina Faso also had a cultural revolution in which FGM, polygamy, and forced marriages were outlawed.

But unfortunately, this was only within a span of four years from 1983 to 1987. While Sankara had a weird dislike of air conditioning which he saw as "luxurious" and removed it from government buildings, he did not deserve to be killed brutally in a French-backed neoliberal counterrevolution which put a social democrat in power and reversed all of socialist progress.

 

[tim]

What have the West Saxons ever done for us?

 

[JimW]

Were any other revolutionary heroes as accomplished on the guitar as Sankara?

 

[tim]

Were any other revolutionary heroes as accomplished on the guitar as Sankara?

Frantz Fanon was a Formby fan and always had his little ukele at hand.

 

[Yugoslav]

What have the West Saxons ever done for us?

Whatever that naming is, the Britons "improved life conditions" obviously with imperialism and colonialism. Why was India driven into poverty and famine? What about Africa? Hell, even Ireland. Britain would be in poverty if it didn't drive its own Africa and the whole of India into poverty. Social democracy is when capitalism tries to justify exploitation of labor abroad by not exploiting its own domestic labor force.

 

[tim]

Whatever that naming is, the Britons "improved life conditions" obviously with imperialism and colonialism. Why was India driven into poverty and famine? What about Africa? Hell, even Ireland. Britain would be in poverty if it didn't drive its own Africa and the whole of India into poverty. Social democracy is when capitalism tries to justify exploitation of labor abroad by not exploiting its own domestic labor force.

The West Saxons forced the Britons off their land and drove them into exile in Cornwall and Brittany, not something that one would expect to improve life conditions. And, later on, King Alfred was too busy burning cakes, driving back the Danes, and squabbling with the Mercians to contemplate sending scips to India.

 

[A380]

Whatever that naming is, the Britons "improved life conditions" obviously with imperialism and colonialism. Why was India driven into poverty and famine? What about Africa? Hell, even Ireland. Britain would be in poverty if it didn't drive its own Africa and the whole of India into poverty. Social democracy is when capitalism tries to justify exploitation of labor abroad by not exploiting its own domestic labor force.

What a unique view, completely new on these boards where everyone sits arround reminiscing on the Raj and writing how lucky the Indians were that we built them a railway…

 

[Yugoslav]

What a unique view, completely new on these boards where everyone sits arround reminiscing on the Raj and writing how lucky the Indians were that we built them a railway…

And what took a railway to be built in India? Unpaid labor?

 

[A380]

And what took a railway to be built in India? Unpaid labor?

That’s close to a meaningful sentence but not quite one…

 

[Yugoslav]

That’s close to a meaningful sentence but not quite one…

Rack-renting, mass exporting of grain, as well as other goods vital to the imperial core in order to stabilize its counter-revolutionary "social democratic" motive against proletarians following the 1789 French Revolution and Chartist rallies in 1830s and 1840s, is what led to mass famines in India in which tens of millions died all in the name of making Britain stable for the bourgeoisie so that there is no worker revolution against Britain.

 

[A380]

Rack-renting, mass exporting of grain, as well as other goods vital to the imperial core in order to stabilize its counter-revolutionary "social democratic" motive against proletarians following the 1789 French Revolution and Chartist rallies in 1830s and 1840s, is what led to mass famines in India in which tens of millions died all in the name of making Britain stable for the bourgeoisie so that there is no worker revolution against Britain.

It appears the bourgeois have seized your punctuation.