Imperialism

By Chris Reynolds In the Middle Ages, Ethiopia was not underdeveloped. Walter Rodney — a black Marxist historian assassinated in 1980 as he tried to build a working-class party in his native Guyana — wrote: “The kings distinguished themselves by building several churches cut out of solid rock. The architectural achievements attest to the level of skill reached by Ethiopians as well as the capacity of the state to mobilise labour on a huge scale. “Fine illuminated books and manuscripts became a prominent element of Amharic culture. Equally fine garments and jewellery were produced for the...

I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain Bob Dylan, Masters of War In order to demystify the post-September 11 situation it is helpful to briefly touch on the two basic claims of the warmongers which were bolstered by the tragedy of the attacks. The assertion concerning the new ferocity and immediate danger which the enemy allegedly represents (1), as well as the supposedly dumbfounded response of the administration (2), were at the core of the propaganda campaign. While we cannot go further in dispelling the myths and exposing...

What follows is a summary of the political and ideological traditions on which Workers’ Liberty and Solidarity base ourselves. Isaac Newton famously summed up the importance of studying, learning, and building on forerunners. “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, he wrote, referring to René Descartes, his contemporary Robert Hooke, and presumably also to his direct predecessor Isaac Barrow. In science few people think they can neglect the “tradition” and rely on improvisation. In politics, alas, too many. The summary here, written in 1995, starts as...

On Saturday 22 October, from 14:00 at Sebbon St Community Centre, London N1 , and re-run on Saturday 29 October, from 13:30 at the Swarthmore Centre, Woodhouse Square, Leeds . Click here for reading .

The AWL held the second of our new series of political day schools on 22 October (in London) and 29 October (in Sheffield). Attendance at the London school was good (twice the number that we had at the first day school of the series), but the Leeds attendance was a bit disappointing (smaller than at the first of the northern day schools, in Sheffield). We discussed globalisation and imperialism. Most of the time was given over to three sets of small-group discussions — one critically evaluating four different assessments of globalisation current on the left, the second assessing six different...

This is no peace conference The SWP and their Stalinoid allies in the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition have been working hard to present their 10 December “Peace Conference” as a left-wing, labour movement-oriented event. Its sponsors include not only the usual trade union and Labour left suspects such as Paul Mackney and Jeremy Corbyn, but international trade union figures including activists from the Korean Confederation of Trade Union and Democratic Labour Party, and Hassan Jumaa from the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. In fact, far from providing an organising space for working...

There is sharp disagreement about the nature and meaning of imperialism on the left, with two broad schools of thought emerging. Two recent books sum up the differences very clearly. Paul Hampton reviews John Bellamy Foster and Robert W McChesney eds. Pox Americana, Exposing the American Empire (Pluto) and Leo Panitch and Colin Leys eds. The Empire Reloaded: Socialist Register 2005 (Merlin) A view about neoliberalism which is largely a fable is expressed lucidly by Immanuel Wallerstein in Pox Americana. He argues that after 1945 the United States was dominant economically, militarily and...

Amendements de Paul Hampton sur l’impérialisme et sur le stalinisme Sur l'impérialisme Au XIXe siècle, le mode de production capitaliste s’est progressivement étendu à toute la planète. Les capitalistes britanniques et leur Etat ont développé des relations capitalistes avec les autres puissances européennes à travers des rivalités commerciales et militaires, mais aussi à travers l’établissement d’une domination coloniale formelle sur un certain nombre de territoires et un contrôle informel sur des Etats politiquement indépendants comme l’Argentine. A l’apogée de l’impérialisme (entre 1880 et...