Exploitation colonialism

Exploitation colonialism: The world in 1898; European empires colonised the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Exploitation colonialism is the national economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its natural resources and its native population. The practice of exploitation colonialism contrasts with settler colonialism, the policy of conquering a country to establish a branch of the metropole (Motherland), and for the exploitation of its natural resources and native population. A colonialist power pursues settler colonialism to relieve the pressures of over-population upon the economy and the national territory of the motherland, and to extend its territory and culture by reproducing its society in other parts of the world. A reason for which a country might practice exploitation colonialism is the immediate financial gain produced by the low-cost extraction of raw materials by means of an enslaved native people, usually administered by a colonial government.

The geopolitics of an Imperialist power determine the colonial practice of either settler colonialism or of exploitation colonialism. In the example of the British Empire, white-skinned colonists settled mainly in northern North America and in Australia, where they exterminated the native populations in the course of establishing a facsimile society of the mother country (metropole). Whereas the densely populated countries of the British Raj (1858–1947), in the Indian subcontinent, and the British occupation of Egypt and South Africa, as well as the island of Barbados, were ruled by a small populace of colonial administrators (colonial government) that redirected the local economies to exploitation management to supply the U.K. motherland with food, raw materials, and some finished goods from the colonies.

Exploitation was often reinforced by colonial European geographers who implemented theories such as environmental determinism, which suggested warmer climates produced less civilized people.^[1] These colonial geographers can be referred to as agents of empire, their theories helped legitimize colonial activity and expansion into overseas territories.^[2]

Geographers such as Friedrich Ratzel suggested that the survival of empire relied on its ability to expand its control and influence around the world.^[3] By implying a correlation between colonial expansion and national success, geographers were able to produce a sense of nationalism within many European nations. Their influence created a sense of pride that was able to reassure subjects that their nation’s activity abroad was beneficial to not only them, but that their presence was necessary within the territories being occupied.^[4]

Barbados was claimed for the English in 1625 by Captain John Powell, and by the 1660s the English had come to regard Barbados as being by far and away their most highly prized possession anywhere in the New World. The island's value to England, and the enormous wealth of a minority of its English inhabitants, hinged on the relationship that had been forged during the previous twenty years between sugar and slavery. ^[5]

See also

• Banana republic
• Dependency theory
• Globalization
• Political economy
• Settler colonialism
• Singer–Prebisch thesis
• Ultra-imperialism
• The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism (1913)
• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917)

Canada/China FIPA

References

1. Gilmartin, Mary (April 2009). Key Concepts in Political Geography. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 116.
2. Gilmartin, Mary (April 2009). Key Concepts in Political Geography. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 116.
3. Gilmartin, Mary (April 2009). Key Concepts in Political Geography. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 116.
4. Gilmartin, Mary (April 2009). Key Concepts in Political Geography. UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. p. 116.
5. Wood, Betty (1997). The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the English Colonies. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 45. ISBN 0-8090-7456-7.