Re: Re: why colonialism?

[Bill Burgess <burgess@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

J. Devine wrote:

> In general, colonialism arises from (1) competition within the ruling
> class, often among nations; and (2) as a solution to class antagonisms and
> other internal social stresses.
On the latter (does this inform "why South Africa?"):

"I was in the East End of London [a working class quarter] yesterday and
attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches,
which were just a cry for 'bread! bread!' and on my way home I pondered
over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of
imperialism...My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e.,
in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a
bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle
the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in
the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and
butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists."

---Cecil Rhodes in 1895, quoted  by Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage
of Capitalism