Corporations and Colonialism

20 Apr

By Comrade Peter

10 Things You Should Know About Imperialism

1. Imperialism

In 1917, Marxist Vladimir Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In this work, Lenin develops the Marxist understanding of Capitalism in the age of Imperialism. Imperialism has continued to develop in Capitalist societies and takes on many forms not bound by the traditional occupation and colonisation which took place in the 18th to the 20th centuries. Below are the most important examples of imperialism which have continued on into the modern day:

2. Corporate Imperialism

Corporations from western imperialist nations have never been reticent to use their political and economic power to tear resources from the global south and indigenous communities in order to redistribute them for profit in western nations. A perfect example of this is the concerted effort to pilfer South American water resources by multi-national corporations Nestlé and Coca Cola, which in 2018 entered talks to allow them exclusive rights to the Guarani Aquifer, a vast water reserve lying below Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The water in this Aquifer is so vast that it is estimated by scientists that the water held there could sustainably provide the whole world with drinking water for up to 200 years. Corporations like Nesté and Coca Cola would rather sacrifice this sustainable resource for short term profits at the expense of indigenous residents of these South American nations.

This corporate imperialism should be gravely concerning to citizens in western nations such as Australia. In Stanley, Victoria, on the land of the Jaitmatang people, local capitalists successfully applied to turn 19 million litres of groundwater into bottled water to be bought by multi-national Japanese corporation Asahi. Efforts such as these demonstrate that there is no resource that capitalists will not plunder in order to acquire relatively short-term profits. Even water, necessary for the survival of all life on Earth, is commodified and sold to produce profits for shareholders.

3. Monopolies

In all nations, monopolies have become the dominant force in so called “free” markets. Monopoly capitalism is simply the natural development of capitalism; it has not occurred through freak accident but rather the system has been designed so that this may occur. Despite liberal “anti-trust” and “anti-cartel” laws, monopolies have developed in Australia and have become almost impossible to combat through conventional liberal lawmaking. Despite some misconceptions, monopoly is not the control of an industry by only one corporation; rather, it is the control of an entire industry by relatively few interconnected corporations who are able to exert excess pressure on the sector.

In Australia, this can clearly be seen in the commercial banking, supermarket and liquor retailing industries. The top four Australian banking firms control 94 percent of the total market, while the top four supermarket firms control 91 percent of the market and the top four Liquor retailing firms control 78 percent of the market. This is even worse than US markets, where the top four commercial banking firms control only 26 percent of the market. Imagine the power four corporations, having near total control of a market, could wield against the working class.

A perfect example of the power of monopolies is Westpac, which has been accused by the ACCC of breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism finance laws over 23 million times. Some of these criminal transactions have been linked to child exploitation in the Philippines. These breaches occur because Westpac and other banks are completely secure in their control of the market and as such are too large and powerful to suffer any repercussions from these illicit transactions. Another example is Woolworths’ underpaying staff by upwards of $390 million. This act was illegal but profitable even if a token sanction is factored in.

There is no penalty an Australian regulator is willing to hand Westpac or any other monopoly that they will not simply calculate as being “the cost of business”. When corporations can’t fail, they stop caring about the rules. Due to the absurdly high control of markets that comes with monopolies and oligopolies, consumer are no longer able to “vote with their wallet”, and must now begin to take more direct action against the worst offenders.

4. Imperialism in the Australian Context

Even nations like Australia engage in Imperialism against developing nations, purely for the purpose of corporate profit. The most poignant example of this is the 2004 Australia East Timor spying scandal, wherein the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) planted clandestine listening devices in the offices of the East-Timorese Prime Minister in order to gain leverage in oil and gas negotiations. Australia has since then continued to ruthlessly prosecute any potential whistle-blowers under the guise of “national security”. Witness K, the individual alleged to have leaked the news, is now being tried in secret by Australian courts while not even allowed to view the evidence that is levied against him.

A perfect example of Imperialism in Australia is the Adani or Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. When Indigenous groups blockaded the road to the mine in protest of the untold environmental destruction occurring, the Queensland Police promised to arrange a meeting with the department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships. In typical fashion however, QPS broke their promise and descended on the protest with over 50 police officers and 20 vehicles in order to intimidate the protestors fighting for their traditional land. There is nothing that the State and Federal Governments will not do in order to maintain their ruthless control of indigenous land for the sake of profit.

5. US Imperialism

The United States of America, as the world’s capitalist hegemon, represents the core of western imperialism. The U.S uses its military and economic might to enforce capitalist interests both at home and abroad. A prominent recent example is US President Donald Trump issuing executive orders banning any US transactions with the Chinese corporations which own Tiktok and WeChat, saying that “aggressive action” must be taken in the interests of “National Security”. Furthermore, the US has given Tiktok’s parent company ByteDance until 15 September to sell its US operations to US firms. Any diligent Marxist can see these as a thinly veiled ruse to bully non-western corporations into giving over valuable assets to western corporations who are unable to keep up technologically in the face of severe brain drain stemming from the widespread implementation of neo-liberal policy.

Another, more severe example is the attempted coup of democratically elected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on 1 May 2020. While this ultimately laughable attempt was foiled by local Venezuelan fisherman, the insidious nature of Western Imperialism should be a grave concern to all peoples fighting against injustice worldwide.

6. International Imperialism

Through economic coercion on the multi-national level, western capitalist states wield the machinery of international collaboration as a tool of Imperialism against non-cooperative states. The UNICEF reported, based on a study by British Doctors, that sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations caused the deaths of half a million children. This collaboration by western imperialists in using the UN as a tool of Imperialism acts as a constant threaten to anti-imperialist nations worldwide. At any time, making an enemy of a Western Imperialist could result in the mass starvation and death of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of your citizens.

The most infamous abuse of the UN by Western Nations is the Korean war. Under the guise of “ensuring free elections”, the United Nations, led by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, worked tirelessly to prevent the establishment of a socialist state in Korea by direct military intervention in what was then a national conflict. The result of this is widespread genocide of DPRK citizens by US and UN forces: over one quarter of their population was decimated and no building over one story was left standing as a result of a horrendous and encompassing bombing campaign. All of this was done to prevent the Korean peoples from taking their peninsula and their destinies into their own hands.

International cooperation is a noble goal which should be strived for. However, under international capitalism, no cooperation can exist outside the threat of crushing sanctions from western nations if governments refuse to play by their rules.

7. International-Finance Imperialism

A particularly insidious part of modern Imperialism can be found in the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Back. These organisations loan money to developing nations in the global south at exorbitant rates often when these nations are undergoing extreme crises and have desperate need for international solidarity. If the nations are unable to repay their loans plus additional interest, which is often the case, the IMF will step in and reorganise the economies of these nations as per the terms of the loan. This “reorganisation” involves widespread privatisation and the removal of subsidies in industries such as agriculture, which poorer nations often depend on economically.

The most prominent example of this is Malawi. From 2001 to 2002, the IMF instituted a series of policies in Malawi, including privatisation of food production and distribution, removal of agricultural subsidies to small farmers and deregulation of the price of staple foods. This resulted in an increase of the price of maze of over 400%, and 70% of rural Malawi families facing starvation. Perhaps the most disastrous neo-liberal policy instituted by the IMF in Malawi was the decision to sell grain reserves during the height of the famine, which calls to mind the British Empire’s similar actions during the Great Irish Famine. As a result of these decisions, thousands of Malawians died and many more faced crippling food insecurity.

8. NATO and Global Stability

Through its American leadership, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has worked tirelessly for the benefit of Western Capital. The most poignant example of this is the NATO military engagement in Yugoslavia. At the tame, US General Michael Short, Chief of the NATO assault on Yugoslavia, commented “One cannot win a war without destroying the possibility of a normal life for the majority of the population. We must take away from them water, power supply, food and even the normal air to breathe”. This is despite NATO repeatedly claiming that they are a “defensive pact”, and that UN forces had entered Yugoslavia as a peacekeeping force. Yugoslavia posed no threat to NATO members and yet its people were ruthlessly slaughtered for the benefit of the west, which after the war and dissolution of Yugoslavia moved immense amounts of industry to the area to take advantage of the now impoverished working class.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact, NATO expansionism in Eastern Europe has created unnecessary international tension and developed a new region where imperialist nations are fighting for economic and political control.

Organisations such as NATO are simply the military wing of western capital and are willing to act as such to protect their own interests. Why else would an organisation of “peace” kill thousands of innocent Yugoslavs?

9. Imperialism as a special stage of capitalism

In his book, Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, Lenin describes Imperialism as a special, advanced stage of capitalism, rather than being a separate and distinct political ideology. Indeed, Imperialism is the natural conclusion of the development of international capitalism. Lenin writes:

“If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up.”

The best way to demonstrate this financial-industrial duopoly is by analysing how the largest financial organisations control global capital. 1318 corporations, representing 60% of global revenues, are controlled by 147 corporations, which control a total 40% of the wealth of those 1318 corporations. In essence, less than 1% of corporations control a network of organisations comprising of 60% of the worlds global revenues. The ownership of international capital is ruthlessly maintained. Corporations like ANZ, JP Morgan or Chase bank deliberately purchase controlling interests in dozens of different industries in order to concentrate the amount of capital they control. Whether it be a homeowner’s mortgage or international shipping conglomerate, odds are a bank has control somewhere along the chain.

10. The way forward for Marxist-Leninists

All Marxist-Leninists from all nations must strongly embrace the principles of proletarian internationalism in order to combat imperialism around the world. Western Marxists must be aware of the acts perpetrated by their Governments against developing nations and be prepared combat them in any way possible.

In Australia, we must be particularly conscious that the land we live on is stolen land. We must listen to the voices of the Indigenous community and be ready and willing to fight alongside them in their battle against the violence perpetrated upon them by the Australian Government.

Imperialism, monopoly and neo-colonialism have continued to be a fact in the 21st Century. Only through diligent and persistent class struggle rooted in proletarian internationalism can the working class ever hope to resist the power of international capital. Our power is rooted in local organising in our own communities and for the benefit of all of the working class. We must always keep in our minds the damage done by Imperialism to the most vulnerable members of our society and be ready to assist in any way we can.

At the very least, we must consistently show solidarity with Indigenous peoples and socialist nations worldwide. We must protect and support these groups at home and we must reject western propaganda and educate ourselves and our communities on the true threat to all of humanity: the capitalist class and their class-traitor allies. Only through this cooperation of all class-conscious members of the working class can we hope to throw off the chains of capitalism and forge a truly just and equitable society for all.