I have complained about it before but I heard on of the guests from guerrilla history on the deprogram make this argument and it made me want to gouge my eyes out. This kind of trans historical argumentation is both stupid and unmarxist, just stop! Sorry I felt the need to vent.
These states were not imperialist and they weren’t settler colonies. This framing doesn’t make any fucking sense when transfered to a medieval context. Like the best you could say is that the Italian city states represented an early firm of merchant capital, but even then that is an incredibly complex phenomenon that has only a tenuous connection to modern capitalism. Calling these city states early capitalism is just a fancy way of saying “lol u hate capitalism yet you exchange good or service! Curious!”
Seriously just stop. I don’t know why this set me off but it was like a week ago and I am still mad about it.
Exactly. There are some terms that where we should be a little more strict about their usage, (especially if they’re being watered down to serve capital), but terms like surplus-value-extraction, imperialism, colonialism, theft, are applicable to pretty much every class-based mode of production.
I don’t listen to podcasts so I don’t know what sparked this post, but I don’t see why anyone would get mad about the general / colloqial usage of the term imperialism.