“Imperialism is essentially an economic phenomenon, and it does not necessarily lead to direct political control or colonization.”

—  Walter Rodney, book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 214.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Imperialism is essentially an economic phenomenon, and it does not necessarily lead to direct political control or colo…" by Walter Rodney?
Walter Rodney photo
Walter Rodney50
Guyanese politician, activist and historian 1942–1980

Related quotes

Ludwig von Mises photo

“Economic knowledge necessarily leads to liberalism.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Teal Swan photo

“The inner compass is designed to lead you in the direction of what is in your best interests. But just because something is in your best interests does not mean that it will necessarily be pleasurable.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer photo

“An Imperial policy must, of course, be carried out with reasonable prudence, and the principles of government which guide our relations with whatsoever races are brought under our control must be politically and economically sound and morally defensible.”

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841–1917) British diplomat

Political and Literary Essays, 1908-1913

“... The imperialism of the bureaucratic-collectivist states is different from that of the capitalist states. But the economic motive forces behind the one are no less powerful than in the case of the other. Only ignoramuses – people who know nothing about history and nothing about Lenin's theory of imperialism – can conceive of imperialism as a phenomenon unique to capitalist society.”

Max Shachtman (1904–1972) American Marxist theorist

Socialist Policy and the War in New International p. 200, 1951

Benito Mussolini photo

“State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Quoted from “The Labor Charter: The Corporate State and its Organization”, promulgated by Mussolini's Grand Council of Fascism, Article 9, (April 21, 1927) Copy found in Mediterranean Fascism 1919-1945, Charles F. Delzell, The MacMillan Press, (1971) p. 122. Also in Benito Mussolini’s “Doctrine of Fascism”, published as “Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions” (1935), Rome: Ardita Publishers, p.135-136.
1920s

Paulo Freire photo

“Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

Ivar Giaever photo

“My own beliefs are that the road to a scientific discovery is seldom direct, and that it does not necessarily require great expertise.”

Ivar Giaever (1929) Norwegian physicist

In fact, I am convinced that often a newcomer to a field has a great advantage because he is ignorant and does not know all the complicated reasons why a particular experiment should not be attempted.
Nobel lecture (1973)

Estes Kefauver photo

“Local economic independence cannot be preserved in the face of consolidations such as we have had during the past few years. The control of American business is steadily being transferred, I am sorry to have to say, from local communities to a few large cities in which central managers decide the policies and the fate of the far-flung enterprises they control. Millions of people depend helplessly on their judgment. Through monopolistic mergers the people are losing power to direct their own economic welfare. When they lose the power to direct their economic welfare, they also lose the means to direct their political future.”

Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) American politician

Senate Hearing, 1947, reported in Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (1998), p. 243.

“The road leading to a goal does not separate you from the destination; it is essentially a part of it.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

"Romano Drom" in Dreams Underfoot : The Newford Collection (2003), p. 118

Rollo May photo

“Dogmatists of all kinds — scientific, economic, moral, as well as political — are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Ch 3 : Creativity and the Unconcious, p. 76
The Courage to Create (1975)
Context: Dogmatists of all kinds — scientific, economic, moral, as well as political — are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyers of our nicely ordered systems. For the creative impulse is the speaking of the voice and the expressing of the forms of the preconscious and unconscious; and this is, by its very nature, a threat to rationality and external control.

Related topics