Canada: an imperialist country?

[truffle_pig]

Hi -- I'm new here.

I've had some long arguments about Canada and it's imperialism. I've heard the obvious patriotic responses, as well as the other side, that Canada exploits versus being the exploited.


What do you think -- is Canada an imperialist country? And what makes it so?

[redstar2000SE]

It would perhaps help if people didn't consider "imperialist" as a "nasty label" that one should "deny" at all costs, but rather a simple descriptive word...one that has a clear definition that either applies or doesn't apply, depending on the evidence.

Does Canada have large corporations with investments in the "third world"? Yes, it does.

Does Canada supply military assistance to oppressive regimes in the "third world"? I'm pretty sure it does...though I have no details readily at hand.

Does Canada supply troops to U.N. "peace-keeping" missions -- the new name for what used to be called colonial wars? Yes, it does.

Of course Canada's imperialism is of the "minor league" variety; it operates most often as a (very) junior partner of U.S. imperialism.

But, as is the case with a number of other small imperial powers, Canada serves a useful purpose from the standpoint of American imperialism.

When the U.S. wants to weaken the appearance of its domination in some distant locale, small imperial powers are often substituted...in return, perhaps, for some limited economic concessions ("a small piece of the pie").

Often wearing those powder-blue helmets, they can pose as "neutrals" who are "just trying to keep order" and "restore civilization" in places where direct American occupation provokes or might provoke intransigent and sustained resistance.

But I don't think you should kid yourself about what's really going on behind the scenes...large Canadian corporations relentlessly searching for "investment opportunities" and not terribly "fussy" about the methods used to acquire or keep them.

A "small" imperialist country is still imperialist.

[Maz]

Yeah, I'd agree with red star here. The world is basically split between two different types of countries (with a small handfull stadling the barrier) - imperialist countries and opressed countries. In the imperialist countries you find a highly developed and concentrated capitalism that is constantly pushiong out into the rest of the world for more profits.

In the oppressed countries you see very backwards production relations, feudalism, semi-feudalism, and an economy that is not highly integrated. For example, if railroads exist they do so to serve the world market by linking a mining region to a port, but not a well-rounded economic setup in the country. (compare a map of Alberta to a map of Mali - it is striking) As well, the bourgeoise in the oppressed countries is small and undeveloped, and the main growth of capitalism in those countries comes from the capital of the imperialist countries themselves.

So in Cuba, for example, the development of capitalism there isn't cuban capital, but Canadian and western European capital in Cuba.

And Canada is very much entrenched on the imperialist side of the coin. They benefit from these lopsided relations (to use Bob Avakian's term) by sucking up profits from the oppressed countries.

Now a lot of people make a big deal out of the fact that Canada is dominated by the US. And this is true. Of course the revisionists in Canada (the CPC(ml) ad the CPC) make a big deal out of this to say that therefore Canada isn't imperialist, but they miss the point because it suits their revisionist programme of building canadian "sovereignty" under the guise of internationalism.

The point however, is that Canadian capital *benefits* from their relationship with the US! They are tied by a thousand blood-soaked threads to US imperialism, and they are junior partners with US imperialism, this is why the Canadian bourgeoisie is pushing this missile defense shit, even though the majority of people are against it, as they should be. (and why they helped so much with Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea etc.)

And really, all this social welfare, university education, health care shit that the canadian ruling class loves to brag about is intimately bound up and connected with these lopsided relations and the exploitation of the third world. Imagine these 'free' hospitals being built with the bones of child labour and you'll dig what i'm saying.

Anyways, that's probably enough for now. But what are people saying in your discussions? What kind of stuff are they talking about to say Canada's not imperialist? branch plants? peacekeepers? the CBC?

[truffle_pig]

Most people I talk to look at me sideways when I state the facts. Most think that our "peacekeeping" will keep Canada from going under the imperialist label. I get Afganistan as a great example a lot. Or the fact that we can vote...

Most of the time I get the feeling that these people are falling right into the label of the patriotic Canadian, where Canada's 'secrets' are swept under the rug -- so they don't understand things from an internationalist viewpoint.

[littletimmy]

Canada is an imperialist country, sure. Look at some of the larger canadian corporations that rape the oppressed countries like scotiabank and barrick gold (the world's largest gold mining company). Canada exports highly subsidized agricultural staples like wheat and corn to countries like china that undercut locally produced crops and force peasant farmers into deeper and deeper levels of poverty. Canada's complicity in almost every US-led imperialist war either with troops or massive war contracts(vietnam) and who knows what the hell else. The topic is only really up for debate because the American bougeois class owns more capital in Canada than the Canadian bourgeoisie do. As for the social welfare shit, yeah you're on the street by the time you get a cheque, if you do. A girl in British Columbia got her head literally smashed in by a tire iron and it took her like 4 hours to get medical attention after arriving at the hospital. She survived by pure chance. That shit's all a scam to keep us quiet and it barely works anyway and is in the process of being dismantled. The funny thing is the masses in Canada actually act like they like being taxed to death while government directly dumps billions of dollars into imperialist ventures or the cake "disappears".. fuck...


I hate Canada.

[littletimmy]

thought i might add something. Canada doesn't start imperialist military confrontations because it doesn't have the capability to do so. But it is always there to get a cut cause the interests of the canadian and american bourgeoisie are generally congruent because of how economically interconnected the two countries are.

[JC]

THe CPC says canada is a Imperialist Country , however with a contradictery role . Canadian Capitial is pushed around by US capitial , and yet at the same time , canada has imperialist projects in forign countries .

[Maz]

JC- My mistake. The CPC does claim that Canada is imperialist whereas the CPC(ml) says that Canada is an oppressed country.

However, their whole line about uniting in an 'anti-monopoly ' with sections of the bourgeoisue and then combining that with a chauvinistic call to 'defend canadian sovereignty' puts them pretty squarely in the imperialist camp, despite what they say in words.

Little Timmy - where did you get that figure that the US bourgeoisie owns more canadian capital than the canadian bourgeoisie? Maybe the better question is does it matter.

[Organized Committee]

It would seem the Canadian Maoists agree that Canada is imperialist.

www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/frameset1_en.htm

[JC]

Maz- While I agree that the Anti-monopoly Theory is a opprutinistic line , this dosent put them in the imperalist camp . This Line is in regards to pre-revoloutionary work in the mass movments . Afyter all , is preaching Qebecois soverignty social chavaunist becuase qebec is a imperialist nation albeit under natinol oppresion from da canadian bourgwaze .

[Maz]

The anti-monopoly line is part of the whole revisionist strategy. They do not want power or revolution. What they do want is a power- sharing arrangement with sections of the bourgeoisie to carry out certain reforms. The popular slogans for this strategy are usually of the anti-fascist or anti-monopoly variety - the implication being that there is something less reactionary, or even progressive about other parts of the bourgeoisie in imperialist countries.

I don't see how it can be progressive to defend the sovereignty of an imperialist bourgeoisie, under current conditions at any rate. To do so is demanding that imperialist countries have power, and the right to exercise that power. Communists can't be just about criticizing the very biggest of the imperialists, we have to be calling for the whole imperialist system to be destroyed.

So is preaching quebec sovereignty social-chauvinist? In the way it is currently preached, you bet it is! That's why the quebec (imperialist) bourgeoise, or at least large important parts of it, are the biggest promoters of the quebec sovereignty movement. It's possible that a call to defend quebec sovereignty could be progressive but this would, in my opinion, only be under the context of a revolutionary quebec coming under attack.

Even in the case of imperialist war this would be a mistake. This was the point Lenin made in Collapse of the Second International. Instead of making a call to transform the imperialist war into a revolutionary war, the social-democrats of Europe said "hey look, we're anti-imperialist, but an imperialist country is attacking us, therefore it's the correct and anti-imperialist thing to do to defend our country." So you can see where this kind of logic leads.

[flyby1]

this was a minor point in this thread...
but someone wrote: "So in Cuba, for example, the development of capitalism there isn't cuban capital, but Canadian and western European capital in Cuba."

I think this is basically mistaken, and would lead to a wrong analysis in several ways.

First: after the cuban revolution, the ruling group set up a soviet-style form of state capitalism.

The soviet sociali imperialists "invested" using unequal exchange as their method of transferring capital. I.e. they would buy goods at under world market, the payment would form a basis for various forms of capital investment in Cuba, and they would in exchange get influence on how things developed, what was produced, and payment in various forms (including Cuban involvement in Soviet proxy wars in AFrica.)

However the bulk of the productive forces in Cuba can only be called cuban state capital. In other words, the cuban state (and the state capitalist class headed by Castro) owned the bulk of the productive forces. If that isn't Cuban capital what is it?

The left revisionist view of the Soviet union is that it was "bad socialism" until Gorbachev, and then became capitalist. And similarly they think Chinese state enterprises are some form of "socialist" and the capitalitalist relations only take the form of imperialist capital investment. As if these are "mixed economies" where a socialist state sector coexists and retreats before an advancing imperialist capitalist sector.

This ignores that the so-called "state sector" in China (after 1976), in the USSR (ater 1956) and in Cuba (throughout its post Batista period) had (overall and essentially) the character of capital.

The view expressed at the beginning ("the development of capitalism there isn't cuban capital, but Canadian and western European capital in Cuba.") is a view that assumes Cuba was socialist, and that capitalism has been growing there as a result of increasing Canadian and Euro imperialist investment. But it was capitalist all along, including before the doors opened for investment by Western Powers. (IN some ways they took up the "space" that had been filled by Soviet imperialist investment.) But there WAS cuban capital, and it is analogous to the existance of "bureaucrat capital" in most third world countries (i.e. massive state investment existed in Peru, Indonesia, Philippines etc. and at the heart of it was the clique running the various governments there.)

[flyby1]

Imperialism is a stage of capitalism. It is characterized by monopoly, emergence of finance capital, export of capital to oppressed countries and the division of the world into rival blocs.

All of this applies to Canada.

Some people view the word "imperialism" in a more metaphorical way (i.e. not in the way Marxism uses the word.) To them "imperialism" means you have colonies or you invade countries all the time, andhave an aggressive, threatening foreign policy.

Canadan capitalism is imperialist in the Marxist sense. And it has lots of crimes (including participating in Nato, backing all kinds of U.S. and UN military moves, supporting reactionary forces in alliance with the U.S.)

The junior imperialists (especially the socalled "second world imperialists" like Europe and Canada) like to highlight how different (and mellow) they seem compared to the U.S. But in fact they exploit, expand, and bully in its shadow. They are like the vultures who feast after the wolves have done the killing.

And the essense of imperialism all applies: the negation of earlier competitive and mechantile capitalism, and the aggresssive exploitation of working people all over the world.

[Maz]

This got me thinking. How do you determine the difference between bureaucrat capital and monopoly (imperialist) capital? The state sector of the cuban economy seems to be "monopolized" in the sense that its dominated by a few big ministries, but obviously their state sector is different than say, France's, which is involved in capital export. But is capital export the only real difference?
Recently the Chinese government bought a major natural resources company in Canada. Does this qualify as monopoly capital/capital export? Does this mean China is imperialist? Or is it just a small aberation in what is generally an oppressed nation?

[kasama]

these are excellent questions.

In third world countries there is "bureaucrat capital" that is the state owned processes that are widespread -- and are a mechanism for both local exploitation and a vehicle for imperialist exploitation. (Mobutu and Marcos were multi--billionaires etc. The Suharto family raped indonesia, and served the U.S. and so one. Chiang Kaischek etc.)

Maoists also call monopoly capitalism in the USSR "state monoply capitalism of a bureaucratic state capitaitalist class."


What is china? I have assumed that it is a very very large, but still oppressed country. It is sucking up the raw materials of half the world (cement, wood, etc. etc.)
it is going through history's largest building spurt.

But whether it is oppressed country or imperialist is a matter for analysis.

And i have not seen much in depth on that yet.