El Che™

INMPERIALISM -

Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires. This is either through direct territorial conquest or settlement, or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other countries. The term is often used to describe the policy of a nation's dominance over distant lands, regardless of whether the nation considers itself part of the empire. The "Age of Imperialism" usually refers to the New Imperialism period starting from 1860, when major European states started colonizing the other continents.

The term 'Imperialism' was initially coined in the mid to late 1800s [1] to reflect the policies of countries such as Britain and France's expansion into Africa, and the Americas. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin argued that capitalism necessarily induced imperialism in order to find new markets and resources. This theory of necessary expansion of capitalism outside the boundaries of nation-states was also shared by Rosa Luxemburg and then by liberal philosopher Hannah Arendt

Since then, however, 'imperialism' has been extended by Marxist scholars to be a synonym of capitalistic international trade and banking

Insofar as 'imperialism' in the non-Marxist sense might be used to refer to an intellectual position, it would imply the belief that the acquisition and maintenance of empires is a positive good, probably combined with an assumption of cultural or other such superiority inherent to imperial power (see The White Man's Burden).

Imperialism draws heavy criticism on the grounds that historically it has been frequently employed for economic exploitation in which the imperialist power makes use of other countries as sources of raw materials and cheap labor, shaping their economies to suit its own interests, and keeping their people in poverty. When imperialism is accompanied by overt military conquest, it is also seen as a violation of freedom and human rights.

In recent years, there has also been a trend to criticize imperialism not at an economic or political level, but at a simply cultural level, particularly the widespread global influence of American culture - see cultural imperialism. Some dispute this extension, however, on the grounds that it is highly subjective (to differentiate between mutual interaction and undue influence) and also applied selectively (hamburgers being imperialist and black tea not).