The 'New' Imperialism: Accumulation by Dispossession

Both V. I. Lenin and R. Luxemburg, for quite different reasons and utilizing quite different forms of argument, considered that imperialism – a certain form of the production of space — was the answer to the riddle, though both argued that this solution was finite because of its own terminal contradictions. Lenin quotes Cecil Rhodes as saying that colonialism and imperialism abroad were the only possible way to avoid civil war at home. The Europeans in particular are far more attracted to a Kautskyian vision of ultra-imperialism in which all the major capitalist powers will supposedly collaborate on an equal basis. The shape and form any new imperialism will take is therefore up for grabs. What happens within the United States is a vitally important determinant of how the new imperialism might be articulated. And there is, to boot, a gathering storm of opposition to the deepening of accumulation by dispossession.