The European partition of Africa cannot be explained in economic terms alone. How far do you agree with this statement?

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Phuong Tran

28/10/2007

Essay Title : The European partition of Africa cannot be explained in economic terms alone. How far do you agree with this statement?  

 After low point in the beginning of the 19th century, there was a revival in Imperialism when European powers fought over Asia and Africa; as from 1875 to 1895, European control in Africa went from 10% to 90%. Through many decades in history, imperialism has been defined as extending a nation’s authority by the act of actual conquest and administration of one state; however, more recently, it has been commonly agreed that imperialism can be perceived in larger terms, with a variety of methods rather than “formal” imperialism alone. Even when the common definition has been accepted, there were still numerous debates on the causes of imperialism, in which accumulation theory and monopoly capitalism by J.A Hobson and Lenin argued on term of economic motives; however, their theories were not satisfying enough as there are numerous contradictory variables, shown in the economic and political states of some leading imperial powers, popularity of Imperialism at the time, and the acceptable degree of validity in other incompatible theories.  

     To explain the cause for the “Scramble for Africa” during the late 19th century, Lenin stated: “The impulse was always one of capitalistic greed for cheap raw materials, advantageous markets, good investments, and fresh fields of exploitation”; this explanation was on the negative and extreme side of the accumulation theory provided by J.A Hobson, but contained the same idea of his. The somewhat flawed theory conceived by both J.A Hobson and Lenin stressed on the surplus of production in Europe after the Second Industrial Revolution as the cause for the New Imperialism. In Hobson’s view, the excess of capital in Europe is in hands of the industrialists and business men, which would use it for investing in further production of goods; however, since there is less and less market to consume these goods, the solution comes to overseas investment. This process leads to a further exploitation of the people of the newly found countries, and to a fierce economic race between the elites of different countries in order to part the world. Similarly, Lenin argues that the growing capitalism has left the world under the control of a small group of capitalists, and then “the ‘booty’ is shared between the two or three powerful world plunderers armed to the teeth”. Much of Hobson’s previous work was reviewed favorably by Lenin, especially with Hobson’s analysis that the new imperialism is built on ambition competing empires, motivated by “similar lusts of commercial gain”, and “the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests” However, when writing Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin disapproves Hobson’s rejection of Communist revolution as the only means of preservation from global imperialism. Lenin perceived the imperial expansion as a movement for class struggle, a work done solely by the tight circle of a few elites/businessmen. Hobson provides Lenin with the framework for analyzing imperialism; but whereas Hobson a mature capitalist country can and should avoid imperialism, Lenin insists that it is the inevitable product of capitalism. In addition to their dissimilarities in one common idea, there were numerous incidents and facts that contradict with the accumulation theory by Hobson and the monopoly capitalism theory by Lenin, proving economic expansion was not the ultimate explanation for the scramble for Africa and Asia in Europe.  

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     Although various eminent historians and theorists, including Lenin, agreed that Hobson gave a very good and accurate description of the fundamental economic and political traits of imperialism”, William L. Langer stated that “the export of capital in fact seems to have little connection with imperial expansion”. Contradictory with the argument that colonies were sought for exporting capital, the fact that before 1875, there was already a very considerable export of capital from Britain, one of the leading imperial powers; and in addition, between 1875 and 1895, the period of the climax of imperialism, there was a fall in foreign ...

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