1. expansion is required
a. inclinations toward war & conquest
b. many wars waged without reason
c. social structures tend to maintain themselves
d. many individuals gain socially & economically from war
e. imperialism is of a primitive character
f. “more civilized” countries can pursue imperialism
g. 1750s, capitalism becomes significant
h. a profit based economy developed
i. capitalist classes overthrew the dominant classes of the time
j. the bourgeoisie led the movement
k. workers started to be able to assert themselves politically
l. clerics, legal scholars & physicians were the traditional intellectual class
m. the “professional” became a class
n. people were freed from old institutions
o. democratization, individualization, rationalization (p. 89)
p. rationalistic decisions were needed for their survival > the rest of life was considered rationally because of economic rationalism
q. constant application, attention, and concentration of energy are the conditions for survival
r. excess energy goes into industry, art, science & the social struggle
s. energy for war became energy for labor
t. “A purely capitalist war therefore can offer no fertile soil to imperialist impulses.”(90)
u. should we condemn capitalism or just condemn imperialism?
p. 90
q. “But modern pacificism, in its political foundations if not its derivation, is unquestionably a phenomenon of the capitalist world.”(92)
“threat of attack became an avowed occasion for war.”(93)
“today imperialism is carefully hidden from public view,”(93)
“every expansionest urge must be carefully related to a concrete goal.”(93)]
r. “the industrial worker created by capitalism is always vigorously anti-imperialist.”
-Are they really? Are workers really concerned about imperialism?
t. the capitalist age has “methods for preventing war.”(94)
u. pre-capitalist power structures remain (p. 94-95)
v. the US was the least likely to be imperialist, then Teddy Roosevelt promoted imperialism, p. 96
w. many people will gain from war in a capitalist economy, p. 97
x.the national economy is impoverished by war, p. 98
y. the war profits aren’t a big enough motivation for capitalists to go to war
z. actual free trade areas: no forcible expansion into such areas, p. 99
2. protectionism is not an essential characteristic of capitalism
3. barriers hurt exports
4. the economy becomes a weapon for the political struggle, 102
5. tariffs hurt consumers
6. tariffs help specific industries, 103
7. before 1914, banks had excess capital
8. protectionism leads to trusts
9. monopoly capitalism: big banks + cartels are one
10. organized capital profits hugely from wars of aggression
11. foreign workers are underpaid
12. capitalism overproduces, then needs somewhere to put the excess of products
13. monopolies are behind protective tariffs
14. capitalism and imperialism don’t have to lead into each other, 118
15. tariffs-from the monarchy
16. unnatural advantages in capitalism....
17. the bourgeois became one of the power instruments of the monarchy, p. 119
18. modern nationalism developed, p. 120
19. the Hanseatic League & Venice could only maintain themselves with fortified bases, warehousing privileges, and protective treaties
20. “established habits of thought and action tend to persist, and hence the spirit of guild and monopoly at first maintained itself, and was only slowly undermined, even where capitalism was in sole possession of the field.”(121)
21. autocracy was needed to protect economic interests
22. “Capitalism did bring about many changes on the land, springing in part from its automatic mechanisms, in part from the political trends it engendered-abolition of serfdom, freeing the soil from feudal entanglements, and so on-but initially it did not alter the basic outlines of the social structure of the countryside.”(121)
23. “the features and trends of autocracy-including imperialism-proved so resistant, why they exerted such a powerful influence on capitalist development, why the old export monopolism could live on and merge into the new.”(121-122)
24. the ruling class of the Middle Ages did not become the capitalist class, landowners were a different class
25. “The nobility entered the modern world in the form into which it had been shaped by the autocratic state-the same state that had also molded the bourgeoisie. It was the sovereign who disciplined the nobility, instilled loyalty into it, “statized” it, and, as we have shown, imperialized it.”(123)
26. “The bourgeoisie did not simply supplant the sovereign, nor did it make him its leader, as did the nobility. It merely wrested a portion of his power from him and for the rest submitted to him.”(123)
27. “It is in the state that the bourgeois with its interests seeks refuge, protection against external and even domestic enemies. The bourgeois seeks to win over the state for itself, and in return serves the state and state interests that are different from its own.”(124)
28. “Because pugnacious sovereigns stood in constant fear of attack by their equally pugnacious neighbors, the modern bourgeois attributes aggressive designs to neighboring peoples. All such modes of thought are essentially non-capitalist.”(124)
29. “Nationalism is affirmative awareness of national character, together with an aggressive sense of superiority. It arose from the autocratic state.”(125)
30. the autocracy molds the bourgeois into a nationalistic type of policy, p. 126
31. “The alignment of capitalist interests should make him utterly reject military methods, put him in opposition to the professional soldier.”(126-127)
32. “Nationalism and militarism, while not creatures of capitalism, become “capitalized” and in the end draw their best energies from capitalism.”(128)
33. (Imperialism) “It would never have been evolved by the “inner logic” of capitalism itself.”(128)
34. “The only point at issue here was to demonstrate, by means of an important example, the ancient truth that the dead always rule the living.”(130)
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