zionism

Michael McIntyre mmcintyr at wppost.depaul.edu
Thu Jul 12 13:01:19 PDT 2001



>>> nathan at newman.org 07/12/01 14:51 PM >>>
I think it is useful to distinguish colonialism from the broader rise of Western capitalist dominance of the globe.

We may be entering definitional land, as with the debate on fascism, and maybe colonialism is too multi-faceted in meanings to bother using, but I think its worthwhile to distinguish it from settlement, genocide and the other measures benefitting the West.

Colonialism was a specific mechanism for dominating another nation from a minority position, as with the British Raj or other economic mechanisms to extract an economic surplus from the dominated population to the advantage of the colonial state. ______________________________________________________

If any variant of imperialism has the right to be titled "colonialism" then surely it must be that form of imperialism based on settlement. One implants a colony, after all, by allowing colonists to settle on a territory. Pick up India Office documents, in contrast, and try to find any official reference to India as a "colony". It will be a long search.

Michael McIntyre



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list