Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Rethinking Imperialist Theory


By James Petras


"....Imperial theorizing totally ignores the role of non-economic socio-political power configurations in shaping imperial policy, over and against major economic institutions like MNC, up to and including major military commitments. The role of zionist power configurations and militarist ideologues in shaping US Middle East policy (2000-2010) is a crucial consideration in discussing contemporary imperialism in theory and practice.

Imperial impacts are largely determined by the kinds of imperial states (predominantly economic or military and the sub categories of each), the kind of “targeted” or “host” state (neo-liberal run by collaborators, bourgeois nationalist “partners”, nationalist-statist adversaries) the kinds of policies on foreign capital inflows (sectors open, content and joint-venture rules, technology transfers, financial controls) as well as on capital and profit outflows (tax on profits, time constraints on buy and sell of stocks/bonds).

The issue of imperial domination is not based so much on how much capital flows from imperial countries. Rather it is based on class relation: between imperial and domestic classes....."

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