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Britain maintained it's imperialist reach well into the "capitalist" age (into the 20th century!). The US maintains limited imperialism to this day, although le
by joshuamorton 6y ago
Britain maintained it's imperialist reach well into the "capitalist" age (into the 20th century!). The US maintains limited imperialism to this day, although less so than in the Cold War era.
If you're going to argue that capitalism is incompatible with imperialism, then sure you can be pedantically correct, but then you're arguing about capitalism as a macro-economic policy and not a micro-economic policy, in which case capitalism has nothing to do with personal liberty whatsoever, it has to do with tariffs (and we still aren't doing a good job of it).
That's not usually an interesting discussion to have. And if you're going to make that argument, you sort of also have to accept that Socialism has never been tried (and that it might result in greater personal liberty).
- rayiner 6y agoCapitalist economies can invade other countries and take their resources just like socialist economies can. That doesn’t say anything about those economic systems.
- joshuamorton 6y agoI agree, but you appeared to cla that capitalist economics were incompatible with imperialism by definition and that any such economy would really he mercantilist. You seem to have changed your mind. There original statement was (I believe) that capitalisrlt economies have a history of imposing imperialism on other nations. Do you agree with that, or not?
- rayiner 6y ago> There original statement was (I believe) that capitalisrlt economies have a history of imposing imperialism on other nations. Do you agree with that, or not? I agree with that. But that’s not how I read the OP’s statement, and not how the links between capitalism and imperialism are developed in the relevant literature. That appeared to go further to imply that imperialism is itself a manifestation of capitalism, rather than something that’s simply compatible with capitalism. It’s the difference between saying that Democratic countries have a history of imperialism (Britain, Rome) and saying that imperialism is a manifestation of or structurally linked to democracy.