Neocolonialism

Neocolonialism, alternatively spelled neo-colonialism and also known as colonialism without colonies, informal empire, informal imperialism or neoimperialism (itself alternatively spelled neo-imperialism), is the prevailing mode of capitalist domination in which a bourgeois state grants the trappings of sovereignty to a weaker country while finance capital retains control over most of its profitable resources. Unlike territorial imperialism, neoimperialism does not directly colonize countries, instead trapping them in a relation that makes them economically dependent on the neoimperialist state.

Under neoimperialism, a neocolony will have pretensions to independence, such as an otherwise native government administering and paying for the affairs at home, but in practice the supreme authority with regards to policies, wealth, and other resources is the neoimperialist state. The neoimperialists do not rely on violence for either imposing a colonial government or excluding other imperial powers, but merely to secure the conditions for domination. Money is the neoimperialists’ first resort for dominating others, and failing that they rely on violence, usually channeled through native rebels, but sometimes they still channel it through direct invasion as well, only with the goal of installing an allied capitalist régime rather than just annexation.

History

The term neocolonialism has been in use since the 1950s, but the practice itself dates to the early 1900s, when the Cubans won their independence from Spain in the late 1890s only to transfer into the dominion of Imperial America for the next decade. While technically the Cubans now had their own government, constitution, currency, security force, and national symbols, the White House reserved the final say on foreign policy decisions as well as Cuban resources.

The American bourgeoisie further developed the practice of neoimperialism in 1913, promoting national independence from the Great Powers for colonies such as the Philippines, and the white bourgeoisie fully developed the practice by the Cold War, in which the British, French, and Japanese bourgeoisies likewise adopted neoimperialism as a less costly and more politically expedient alternative to outright colonial rule. The Third Reich also practised neoimperialism in Southeastern Europe, especially in the Kingdom of Romania and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, using ideas and institutions that evolved during the Second Reich or afterwards. The Reich's neocolonies proved crucial for providing the resources necessary for committing traditional imperialism elsewhere in Eurasia.

Not all attempts at neocolonialism have been successful. For example, during the late 1940s the White House began a project called Operation Bloodstone, a plan designed to recruit disgruntled Easterners (ranging from social democrats to Fascists) and prepare them for forcibly reclaiming regions in the USSR while concealing and denying any Western culpability. But internal difficulties such as factional infighting, as well as the overwhelming strength of Soviet forces, made the operation a long‐term failure. Sometimes bourgeois states do succeed in establishing a neocolony for a while, but due to the lack of de facto independence the neocolony still carries the risk of natives replacing it, sometimes with the assistance of a new national leader who is or becomes patriotic or reformist rather than a comprador collaborator. One example of this is Manuel Antonio Noriega, who started his rulership in Panama as a CIA asset but gradually became less and less compliant with the neoimperialists over time, resulting in Imperial America directly invading Panama in 1989 and leaving it with a more compliant neocolonial régime in 1990.