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In this provocative new study, Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigourous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange and colonial tribute. The result is a polarised international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South.
Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised.
The only way forward, Cope argues, is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labour internationalism.
Part I: The Mechanics of Imperialism
1. Value Transfer
2. Colonial Tribute
3. Monopoly Rent
4. Unequal Exchange
Part II: The Econometrics of Imperialism
5. Imperialism and its Denial
6. Measuring Imperialist Value Transfer
7. Measuring Colonial Value Transfer
8. Comparing Value Transfer to Profits, Wages and Capital
Part III: Foundations of the Labour Aristocracy
9. Anti-Imperialist Marxism and the Wages of Imperialism
10. The Metropolitan Labour Aristocracy
11. The Native Labour Aristocracy
Part IV: Social Imperialism Past and Present
12. Social Imperialism before WWI
13. Social Imperialism after WWI
14. Social Imperialist Marxism
Conclusion: Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism Today
Description
In this provocative new study, Zak Cope makes the case that capitalism is empirically inseparable from imperialism, historically and today. Using a rigourous political economic framework, he lays bare the vast ongoing transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest countries through the mechanisms of monopoly rent, unequal exchange and colonial tribute. The result is a polarised international class structure with a relatively rich Global North and an impoverished, exploited Global South.
Cope makes the controversial claim that it is because of these conditions that workers in rich countries benefit from higher incomes and welfare systems with public health, education, pensions and social security. As a result, the internationalism of populations in the Global North is weakened and transnational solidarity is compromised.
The only way forward, Cope argues, is through a renewed anti-imperialist politics rooted in a firm commitment to a radical labour internationalism.
