Güney Işıkara and Patrick Mokre are authors of Marx’s Theory of Value at the Frontiers: Classical Political Economics, Imperialism and Ecological Breakdown.
Green Left’s Federico Fuentes spoke to Işıkara and Mokre to better understand the shifting dynamics within the global imperialist system.
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Are the original colonial powers still the main imperialist powers today?
There is a striking continuity between the pre-capitalist colonial empires and the power centres of contemporary imperialism. However, pre-capitalist colonialism and contemporary imperialism operate through different economic dynamics.
The most powerful country in today’s imperial core, the United States, was not a colonial empire in the classical sense but itself a colony. Conversely, once-dominant colonial empires, such as Spain and England, are now far more marginal.
Under capitalism, capital accumulation is the driving force. Because of this process’s internal contradictions, the most advanced capitals in a country eventually run up against limits shaped by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
At the same time, they are powerful enough to mobilise their state apparatuses to support their interests abroad. By investing in countries with older and less efficient capitals, lower wages, weaker regulation and generally lower levels of competition, they secure higher profit rates, at least temporarily.
They also deploy economic power alongside military, diplomatic and political resources to suppress competitive threats and keep productive forces in other regions underdeveloped.
How have the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation changed over time?
Before the 20th century, former colonial empires and emerging imperialist states primarily used the periphery as a source of cheap resources — often close to outright plunder — and cheap or enslaved labour.
A major shift occurred with the large-scale export of capital commodities, not simply for sale to foreign capitalists but as a means to outsource production while retaining ownership. Capital exports generated substantial profit flows from the periphery back to industries in the imperialist countries.
Immediate after World War II, profitability in the imperial centre was a less pressing problem, while formal decolonisation of colonies became central.
During this period, a consolidated world market, in which the periphery depended on importing consumer and capital goods while exporting agricultural products and raw materials, grew in importance. This led to significant international transfers of value.
In the 1990s, capitalism was re-introduced in many parts of the world. The imperialist core remained the only viable trading partner, one restructured through the neoliberal backlash to eroding profitability in the 1960s and ’70s.
This led to a wave of global deregulation and liberalisation, and the globalisation of financial institutions from the imperialist core exporting capital in financial form and consolidating various forms of dependency.
This is a simplified timeline, but there are two essential points.
First, capital exports — in commodity, productive and money form — have always been central to imperialism. One mechanism of economic imperialism emerging does not eliminate others. Analysing imperialism today means examining all mechanisms of dominance, while considering possible countervailing forces.
Second, the economics of imperialism primarily describe capital-to-capital — or, more simply, industry-to-industry — relationships, rather than relations between nations treated as homogeneous entities. Different segments of capital also compete within nations, often over whose interests the state advances.
For this reason, we reserve analytical categories such as exploitation for the social relationship between capital and labour — that is, between capitalists and workers — rather than relations between countries.
The study of imperialism, while centred on the international dimensions of capital accumulation, cannot be reduced to relations between nations abstracted from class conflict.
How can we categorise China’s global status?
Our dataset covers the period 1995–2020, and at the start of this period China occupied a subdominant position.
In the 1990s, China accounted for a much smaller share of global output than today, with a low value composition of capital and a high rate of surplus value. Through both channels, it transferred value to the imperialist core.
In the early 2000s, China’s capital composition began to converge toward the global average, and it became a recipient of value transfers through that mechanism. In the early 2010s, a similar shift took place with the rate of surplus value.
China’s transition from net loser to net recipient coincides with the Global Financial Crisis, roughly in 2010, and it has maintained this advantageous position since.
During the same period, our results show a relative setback for the US, particularly in terms of value composition.
To us, this aligns with broader developments: China’s relative stability, its sustained capitalisation and its rise to global leadership in several key industries, contrasted with a turbulent decade in the US economy, economically and politically.
We should stress, however, that our figures only refer to transfers of value resulting from the formation of international prices of production.
They do not capture other major mechanisms of economic imperialism, such as the role of non-production industries in appropriating value created abroad, capital exports, advantages linked to currency hierarchies and similar dynamics.
It is reasonable to assume that the US, along with other core imperialist countries, still enjoy significant advantages in these areas.
There is also political and military power. As the US is more directly challenged by China economically it has mobilised its political and military capacities more frequently and assertively. In strictly military terms, the US still holds clear and substantial supremacy.
For that reason, we do not believe that our findings are enough to conclude that China is already an imperialist power or that it is fully on par with the US as an imperialist rival.
What we show is that China has shifted its position in one central dimension of imperialism. That shift is significant and substantial, but not, on its own, enough to determine China’s overall position within the imperialist world system.
What about Russia?
With the same caveats mentioned earlier — that the analysis in the book is partial and provisional — our findings indicate that Russia is not a net recipient of international value transfers.
That does not mean, however, that it is necessarily a net loser in all other dimensions of economic imperialism. Nor does it imply that Russia holds a subordinate military position, whether regionally or globally.
We see the world economy, as well as global political and military power structures, as still dominated by the conventional imperialist countries. At the same time, our analysis of global capitalism is grounded in the concept of real competition.
At both micro and macro levels, relations of domination are continuously contested, largely due to capitalism’s internal contradictions. Challenging powers may succeed or fail, and these processes often unfold over long historical periods.
Imperialism is therefore not only a relationship of domination between imperialist and neo-colonial countries. It also involves rivalries within the dominant bloc, as well as competition among neo-colonial countries striving to improve their relative positions.
Over time, a country’s economic and military capacities may erode to such an extent that maintaining its political standing within the imperial bloc becomes its main objective.
Conversely, a country may strengthen economically — China is an obvious example — and begin challenging established hierarchies primarily through economic channels, while remaining militarily subordinate and excluded from the core political alliances upholding the existing order.
What do these examples tell us about the reliability of focusing on just one or a few economic indicators (value transfers, labour productivity, GDP per capita, etc) to determine a country’s status in the world today?
This question goes straight to the heart of how we understand imperialism — and, more broadly, value theory itself.
We are always dealing with counteracting forces and internal contradictions, and these force us to look beyond any single indicator.
Take Taiwan. Taiwanese capital, as a whole, appears as a net giver in terms of value transfers.
At the same time, its semiconductor industry is not only internationally competitive but in many respects technologically dominant. However, this strength is concentrated largely in one sector, and that sector remains highly dependent on demand from the tech industries of China and the US.
Value transfers linked to the value composition of capital — where Taiwanese semiconductor producers are clearly in a recipient position — may be offset by value losses in other industries.
This reflects Taiwan’s subdominant position within the broader alliance of imperialist countries.
South Korea is somewhat different. It has a relatively diversified production structure, with most major industries domestically owned. Like Germany, South Korea appears as a net giver of international value transfers, yet it also runs a strong trade surplus.
In other words, the disadvantages it faces in one mechanism of economic imperialism may be counterbalanced — or even outweighed — by advantages in another.
These examples illustrate the broader point: relying on one variable is not enough to determine a country’s position within global capitalism.
Imperialism is shaped by multiple, interacting mechanisms. That is precisely why we believe developing a coherent and consistent value-theoretical framework for studying the global economy is not only useful, but urgently needed.
[Abridged from LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal. This interview is the latest in LINKS’ ongoing series on imperialism today.]