Wk 1: Early Globalization: Colonialism and Imperialism

Capitalism defined

“An economic system in which private capital or wealth is used in the production or distribution of goods and prices are determined mainly in a free market; the dominance of private owners of capital and of production for profit.”

Capitalism

• relies on economic growth, as well as physical expansion growth

• more self-interest/self-growth

• is a mass production of commodities for sale (rather than basic stuff for immediate consumption/subsistence)

• Private rather than state ownership of a lot of that production

• reliance on waged and/or coerced labor to make commodities

• widespread competition among capitalists/businesses for expanding profits

• Reliance on economic growth

Capitalism: Commonly held view:

• developed in Europe and then eventually spread to the rest of the world

Capitalism: in Fact:

• Capitalism in Europe always depends on the rest of the world

Imperialism

• the expansion of the power of one state beyond its borders to control other people, places, and cultures

Colonialism (one form of imperialism)

• Formal control over one territory and its people by another

• Based on claims about differences between colonized and colonizer

Capitalism and Imperialism: European imperial expansion over non-European land and people

• Drive largely by desire for cheap resources, cheap (coerced) labor, new markets

• Development of modern manufacturing and industrial revolution

• Rise of an interconnected, but highly uneven and unequal, capitalist global economy.

Phases of Imperial Expansion (5)

• 1450-c.1750: 1st Age of Empire

• 1750 - 1885: Informal Empire

• 1885 - 1914/45: 2nd/High/Classic Age of Empire

• 1965-present: Contemporary Globalization

1st Age of Empire: c. 1450-1750

• Formal colonization of the Americas

• Mainland “settler colonies”

• Caribbean “plantation colonies”

• Large-scale agriculture (e.g. cotton, sugar)

• Mineral extraction (e.g. silver)

• The “Great Dying” (due to illness brought by Europeans)

• African Slave Trade

• “Triangle trade”

Informal Empire: c. 1750-1875

• fewer formal colonies

• Intensification of empire in Asia and Africa

• Combination of 

  • Informal “spheres of influence”

  • Trading/mining colonies

• European/US

• extraction of resources

• Control over vast economic networks

• Rising European/US living standards

• Industrial Revolution

  • Gradual abolition of slavery

The Scramble for Africa

• 1884 Conference of Berlin

• By 1900, Europeans controlled -> 

  • 90% of Africa

  • 6 million sq. miles

  • 110 million African people

  • 30 new African colonies

2nd Age of Empire: 1885 - 1914/1945

• Formal colonization of Africa and Asia

• Some: Settler colonies

• Most: governed by small numbers of European elites

• Belgian Congo: Absolutist rule

• Key drivers included: 

  • Growing inter-imperialist rivalry

  • Domestic European (working class) unrest

  • Rising European Nationalism

  • Growing indigenous resistance

  • Economic changes

• Economic changes:

  • Industrial revolution -> need industrial inputs

  • Capitalist expansion-> need new markets

  • Rising Western living standards -> need to feed new consumption habits

Early Globalization

• Together, imperialism and capitalism -> “globalization”

  • Interconnected, uneven, and unequal economy

  • Mass migration of European and non-European peoples

  • Cross-border cultural changes and exchanges

• Set the stage for 20th and 21st century globalization