An Interpretation of American Imperialism

The Journal of Economic History

Volumn 32, Issue 1, 1972, Pages 316-360

  Zevin, Robert ^a  

^a Lincoln Massachusetts ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84974296122     PISSN: 00220507     EISSN: 14716372     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700075537     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. David B. Guralnik, ed., Webster's New. World Dictionary, of the. American Language (Second College Edition; Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Co., 1970),.p. 704.
2. Joseph Schumpeter, “The Sociology of Imperialism,” Imperialism, Social Classes (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), p. 6
3. * Descriptions of virtually all of the events described in this section can be found in any standard history of the United States or encyclopedia. Only the exceptions to this rule have been documented.
4. 's. Selden Rodman, Quisqueya (New York: University of Washington Press, 1964), pp. 108-19.
5. Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy (New York: Amo, 1966), pp. 151-54; there is a more thorough treatment in an unpublished paper by a former student of mine, Stephen Mark, ‘T'he Conquest of Nicaragua,” 1969.
6. ’ lam indebted to Edward Nell for demonstrating to me that the word “Marxist” in this section should really be “Leninist.” The force of Professor Nell's point is not merely that Lenin and subsequent “Marxist” writers developed a theory which was not explicit in the works of Marx; but, that much of Marx's historical writing contained an analysis consistent with later sections of this paper and in conflict with the Leninist view of imperialism. A distinction similar to Nell's and an analysis sometimes parallel to my own is contained in a book which appeared a few weeks after this paper was first presented: Ceorge Lichtheim, Imperialism (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971). I persist in employing the term “Marxist” since that is the common self-appellation employed by all of the writers whose views are here under attack. This usage has propelled the apocryphal dictum attributed to Marx-I am not a Marxist.”-into widespread credence and citation.
7. Robert E. Callman, “Gross National Product in the United States, 1834-1909,” Output, Employment and Productivity in the United States after 1800, Studies in Income and -Wealth, XXX (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1966), 11.
8. Ibid., p. 9.
9. Frederick R. Macaulay, The Movements of Interest Rates, Bond Yields and Stock Prices in the United States since, 1856 (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1938), pp. A108-09.
10. ” Ibid., Appendix A. See also: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington: G.P.O., 1960), pp. 654-56; hereafter cited as Historical Statistics.
11. Historical Statistics, p. 115.
12. is ibid., p. 117.
13. Simon Kuznets, Capital in the American Economy (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1961), p. 65. All of the trends distinguished in Table 1 would not be materially affected by substituting Kuznets’ calculations of gross capital stock or Gross National, Product. I have selected the series which seemed conceptually
14. most suitable. All of Kuznets calculations have subsequently been refined by Gallman, Lebergott and others. These refinements also have no material impact on the trends of the six columns in Table 1. I have used Kuznets’ original calculations because of their conceptual suitability and their comparability over the entire period.
15. Albert Fishlow, “Productivity and Technological Change in the Railroad Sector, 1840-1910,” Output, Employment and Productivity in the United States after 1800, Studies in Income and Wealth, XXX (New York: NBER, 1966), p. 611.
16. Walter LaFeber, The New Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963).
17. ” Gallman, “Gross National Product…,” p. 26.
18. Historical Statistics, pp. 537-8.
19. Ibid., p.542; Economic Report of the President (Washington: G.P.O., 1971), pp. 197,298.
20. The sources of these statistics are cited above in footnotes 18 and 19.
21. Historical Statistics, pp. 565-6; Survey of Current Business (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1970).
22. Historical Statistics, p. 151. See also, Kuznets, pp. 118-41. The national wealth measure, basically due to Raymond Goldsmith, includes reproducible tangible assets, land and net claims against foreigners. For years subsequent to 1956, I have extrapolated Goldsmith's estimate by subtracting the cumulated differences between Gross and Net National Product, adding cumulated gross investment and construction and multiplying the new total by the ratio of the respective GNP deflators.
23. Historical Statistics, pp. 565-6.
24. Matthew Simon and David E. Novack, “Some Dimensions of the American Commercial Invasion of Europe, 1871-1914,” THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, XXIV.(Dec, 1964),. 591-605. Also unpublished papers by the same authors presented at the 1963 Purdue Conference on the use of Mathematics in Economic History. Historical Statistics, pp. 550-53… ’.
25. Historical Statistics, p. 566 and sources cited for p. 565.
26. This calculation is based on the “crude materials” category of imports; Historical Statistics, pp. 544-45; Economic Report of the President (1971), p. 300
27. LaFeber, pp. 128-30.
28. Wilfred Hardy Callcott, The Caribbean Policy of the United States, 1890-1920 (Baltimore: Octagon, 1942), p. 279
29. The following discussion contains distinct echoes of the Marxist analysis linking imperialism to monopoly. I did not pursue this aspect of the Marxist model in the previous section for want of a satisfactory measure of the incidence of concentration over the past century. It does appear that there was a significant increase in concentration after the beginning of the first wave of imperialism [Ralph L. Nelson, Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895-1956 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959) J. During this century there does not appear to have been a major shift.
30. In this section I speak of micro-monopoly motivations which are. parallel to the macromonopoly behavior contemplated in the Marxist model.
31. Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports (New York: Doubleday &Co., 1961).
32. Ibid:, pp; 92-256.
33. For the most thorough description and analysis of this episode see Edwin Iieuwin, Arms and Politics in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1961), pp. 208-43.
34. The result of these reforms is also to proliferate and enlarge the Federal bureaucracies responsible for administering them. They display the natural imperialist tendencies of all bureaucracies. In particular professional managers and planners quite naturally seek to incorporate and control originally exogenous parameters of their decisions. A similar derived motivation flows from the scientific management of large corporations or fortunes. For an identical analysis of the imperialist motivaton of National Socialism (and by implication the U. S. S. R. or China) see Raymond Aron, The Century of Total War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), esp. p. 71.