imperialism

imperialism was not used in its modern sense until the later 19th cent. Before then it usually referred to the aggression of Napoleon Bonaparte. That does not mean of course that it cannot be used retrospectively, to describe the origins and growth of the British empire in Stuart and Hanoverian times, for example; but the convention is to call these ‘colonization’, and to restrict the word ‘imperialism’ to the later period. It has also taken on a wider meaning. It usually refers to territorial acquisitions, but can also cover extensions of power or influence which fell short of that. ‘Economic imperialism’, for example, means the process by which an economy extends its financial control over others. missionary endeavours have been labelled ‘cultural imperialism’. Sometimes all these different kinds of British expansion in the world are lumped together as ‘informal imperialism’.

It has been explained in various ways. Missionaries used to attribute Britain's imperial successes to the will of God. ‘Social Darwinists’ thought they proved the British race was ‘fittest’ to survive. An Austrian sociologist called Joseph Schumpeter saw imperialists as a throwback to feudal times. Dr Ronald Hyam argued that the male sex drive had a lot to do with it (Empire and Sexuality, 1991). The favourite theories, however, are economic. At the root of imperialism lay Britain's phenomenal commercial expansion following her industrial revolution. That gave her world-wide material interests, which needed to be secured. Later, according to J. A. Hobson, the Marxists, and some capitalists (like Rhodes), that need grew desperate, as capitalism began ‘over-producing’, and the industrialized countries began competing with each other for outlets. That, however, is controversial.

At its height, around 1900, imperialism also took on a domestic character. Britons forgot the old Napoleonic connotations, and took pride in their imperialism. At its crudest, this pride manifested itself in jingoism; but it also had a more responsible side. All the main political parties—even Labour—sprouted imperialist wings. Keeping up the empire, they insisted, had implications nearer home. It could not be done with a weak, stunted, fickle population, especially in the competitive world of that time. That led some of them to advocate state intervention in order to strengthen people's bodies and loyalties, known as ‘social imperialism’. That had an impact on the Liberal government's reforms of 1906–14. Later it created an unlikely bond between Tory imperialists and more conventional kinds of socialists, which kept free marketism at bay in Britain for many years.

By 1902 it was clear that the empire was stretched about as tight as it could be without bursting, and imperialists turned away from expansion to consolidation. An imperialist became someone who wished to federate the empire: economically (through imperial preference), militarily, and even politically. Many of these imperialists were highly idealistic, and even liberal in their vision of a great multiracial empire, which would bring peace and civilization to the world. Some of them hoped that the post-Second World War Commonwealth might achieve all this, only to be disappointed in the longer run.

decolonization did not bring an end to imperialism, especially in the more ‘informal’ sense of the word. British capitalism still lords it over other economies. Conversely, Britain could be said to be an economic colony of her own creditors. The 1982 Falklands War was widely taken to represent a reversion to an imperialism of a more traditional kind. For many foreigners, especially, it proved that Britain was still infected by the virus. That may have been unfair.

Bernard Porter