Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Oecolonization I 17
analysis of global capitalism, which was thus more radical
than simply opposing fo reign rule or presence per se. In the
corresponding metropolitan context, anti-imperialism was
a term used on the Lett to add an anticolonial component
to a domestic anticapitalism focused solely on localized
(and ethnically bounded) class struggle.
The goal of modern imperial power projection is
the accumulation of capital, considered necessary for the
strengthening of the colonizing state relative to other
states. Capitalism in the north, particularly in its industrial
fo rm, required "underdeveloped" areas in order to continue
expanding and stave off periodic crises in its wealthgenerating
system, constantly renewing the fo unding act of
primitive accumulation along new frontiers of dispossession.
By seizing resource-rich areas, enlisting the resident
populations as cheap labor and a captive market, a "great
power" could externalize its costs on to its colonies while
enabling a massive extraction of surplus. In this way, colonialism
embodied the symbiosis of global capital with the
interstate system, underpinned by the crucial legitimizing
ideologies of cultural and racial supremacy. Colonialism
was in fact instrumental in generating the logics and structures
of capitalism, nationalism, and racism during their
fo rmative periods.
Nationalism developed in tandem with the period of
high imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century,
leading to what's otten termed the first round of globalization
at the turn of the twentieth. The logic was that a
great nation needed a strong state, and a strong state needed
a colonial empire in order to secure an advantageous