A-Infos (en) Australia, AnComFed: Picket Line - Imperialism is not history (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The easiest way to conceptualise imperialism is like this: ---- 
Capitalism is driven by profit. Businesses invest money to make more 
money. Their money acts as capital. As production expands, wealth 
concentrates in fewer hands: those of the ruling class. That 
concentrated capital must constantly find new avenues for investment, or 
the system stalls. ---- But profitable opportunities within a single 
state aren't unlimited; markets become saturated, which means 
competition intensifies and returns fall. When this happens, capital 
looks outward. It seeks new markets, cheaper labour, access to raw 
materials, and control over transport routes, energy systems, and 
strategic infrastructure.

This predatory outward expansion is imperialism.

The global organisation of capitalism itself
Imperialism is not carried out by isolated corporations acting alone, 
but organised and managed through governments, i.e., states. The state 
is not a neutral body standing above society. It coordinates and 
protects the interests of those who own and control capital. It 
negotiates trade agreements, enforces debt repayments, secures supply 
chains, stabilises currencies, disciplines labour, and, when necessary, 
deploys military force to protect or extend the position of 'their' 
capital within the world market. This is not a policy choice that can be 
voted out or reformed. Imperialism is structural and inevitableprisons 
or cops or armies, it is how capitalism works.

Most imperialism does not take the form of open war, either. It operates 
through finance, trade rules, investment flows, and political pressure. 
Nationalist propaganda is also deployed, largely rooted in racism and 
aimed at dividing workers 'here' from workers 'over there'. The 
International Monetary Fund restructures economies in ways that open 
them to foreign capital and lock them into debt, as seen with USA's 
chokehold on South America. Large infrastructure projects like China's 
Belt and Road Initiative tie countries into supply chains and strategic 
alignments shaped by major world powers. These are forms of imperial 
competition.

War becomes more likely when rivalry between capitalists sharpensmaybe 
profitability declines, markets contract, or access to strategic 
resources is threatened. Military conflict can destroy surplus capital, 
redraw trade routes, and create new openings for investment and 
reconstruction. War is presented to workers as a struggle for freedom, 
security, or national survival. Beneath the language of patriotism are 
material interests for the ruling class: control over trade routes, 
energy supplies, logistics networks, markets, and strategic 
territoryalways at immense human cost, whether in Sudan or Ukraine.

This does not make ideology irrelevant. Nationalism, democracy, 
religion, and security narratives are essential for mobilising consent, 
from Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians to the US bombing of 
Venezuela and Iran. Sections of the working class are not just 
conditioned by racism to view other sections in a dehumanised light, but 
are materially tied into imperial structures through defence industries, 
resource extraction, and superficial advantages enabled by global 
inequality.

Imperialism, then, is not just foreign policy or territorial conquest. 
It is the global organisation of capitalism itself: a system of uneven 
development, enforced dependency, and competition managed by state 
power. Its violence includes bombs and invasions, but also debt, 
dispossession, ecological destruction, racism, and border regimes that 
divide workers in the Global South from workers in the Global North. In 
the end, capitalism exploits both.

Outside and against the state
Some argue that because the United States remains the dominant 
imperialist power, we should support its rivals. Others argue that 
certain authoritarian states, such as Russia or China, pose such a 
danger that workers should back Western liberal democracies.

But the United States, China, Russia, the European Union aren't 
civilisational camps locked in some eternal battle between freedom and 
tyranny. They're managing capital accumulation under different 
historical conditions, competing for advantage within the same global 
capitalist system.

Yes, states occupy different positions within the global hierarchy. Some 
exercise financial dominance; others rely on resource extraction or 
regional military leverage. These differences shape conflict. But none 
of these states stand outside capitalist social relations, and none 
offer a path beyond exploitation, no matter what banner or slogan they 
hoist.

Imperialism cannot be ended by the defeat of the 'evil' empire by a 
'better' state, or the election of a different government. The state 
exists to enforce class and manage accumulation. Even states that emerge 
from decolonial or revolutionary struggles confront the pressures of the 
world market: they must secure foreign currency, maintain 
competitiveness, attract investment, police borders, and manage labour. 
They must preserve capitalism.

We don't say this is an argument against decolonisation. National 
liberation is necessary, but replacing one state with another does not 
dismantle capitalism at home, and therefore won't dismantle the global 
system that drives imperialism. Gains for workers are not won through 
shifts in geopolitical balance, or loyalty to 'our' ruling class. A 
world organised around competing states managing capital can only 
continue to guarantee conflict. Breaking from imperialism requires 
breaking from nationalism, which in turn needs internationalist 
organisation, collective power, and worker solidarity through shared 
struggle across borders and against all ruling classes.

A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends
Imperialism is structural. To oppose it, we must oppose the system that 
generates it: capitalism.

The economic rift between the Global North and the Global South isn't 
preordained. War doesn't fall from the sky. It all depends on supply 
chains, ports, arms factories, financial systems, logistics networks, 
energy grids, and state-perpetuated narratives. Workers sit at key 
points throughout these systems. That's where our power lies. 
Imperialism is reproduced every day through labour, which means it can 
also be broken.

Time and time again, history has shown the working class successfully 
getting in the way of imperialism: disrupting military logistics, 
refusing to load weapons, halting production. Those actions didn't come 
from nowhere; they grew out of organised movements with political 
clarity and collective confidence.

Rebuilding that capacity won't be easy. Revolution isn't around the 
corner and imperialism is, in fact, not easy to conceptualise. Our class 
is deeply divided by race, nationality, and uneven development. 
Nationalism runs deep, so does fearall by capitalist design. Outrage 
alone hasn't been enough to propel movements towards real change, either.

If we want a fighting chance at stopping weapons production or 
challenging the integration of our workplaces into the war machine, we 
need durable organisation rooted in workplaces and communities. We need 
unions that can act, not limit themselves to bargaining and press 
statements. That means tying anti-war politics directly to struggles 
over wages, conditions, job security, and class power. That means 
dispelling nationalistic and racist narratives that fragment workers. 
And it cannot stop at national borders. Workers facing the same supply 
chains must coordinate across them.

International solidarity isn't a moral slogan, it has to become a 
practical commitment that extends to workers everywhere, including those 
living under governments presented as our enemies. China, Iran, Congo, 
Papua New Guinea. Their struggle, like ours, is against the ruling 
class. Our task is to organise against imperialism where we are, expose 
the material interests driving it, and disrupt the infrastructures that 
make it all possible across the world.

Imperialism is global, and so must be the revolution.

https://ancomfed.org/2026/04/imperialism-is-not-history/
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