Is capitalism intrinsically a form of imperialism and terrorism?
This article centers on a critical and provocative question: Is capitalism intrinsically a form of imperialism and terrorism? To address this inquiry, it is necessary first to deconstruct the prevailing sanitized narratives that depict capitalism as a benign system characterized by free markets and entrepreneurial liberty. Rather, capitalism should be conceptualized as a mode of production fundamentally driven by the relentless imperative of capital accumulation, controlled by a narrow elite class that owns the means of production.
This system is inherently expansionist, requiring continuous penetration into external territories to secure inexpensive labor, raw materials, and new markets—often at the significant cost of entire populations and ecosystems. Karl Marx referred to this process as “primitive accumulation,” a phenomenon marked by expropriation and violence from its very inception.
This expansionist dynamic is intimately linked with imperialism, as elaborated in Vladimir Lenin’s seminal work, *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* (1917), wherein imperialism is characterized as the monopoly phase of capitalism. In this framework, dominant capitalist powers—through mechanisms such as cartels, finance capital, and state institutions—partition the world into spheres of influence, extracting surplus value from colonized or semi-colonized regions.
Imperialism thus transcends mere economic domination, functioning as a geopolitical strategy that enforces unequal exchange and suppresses resistance. Moreover, this conceptualization extends to terrorism, which is redefined not as isolated acts of non-state violence but as state-sponsored or corporate-facilitated terror employed to sustain economic hegemony, as we see being unleashed in Gaza.
This encompasses overt military interventions, proxy conflicts, economic warfare through sanctions and debt dependency, as well as covert operations aimed at destabilizing sovereign nations to secure control over resources. Such actions instill terror among populations, generating fear, displacement, and famine to facilitate the penetration of capital. By interlinking these phenomena, the analysis reveals capitalism’s structural violence: it is not an anomaly but rather the driving force behind global inequality, wherein profit imperatives underpin imperial conquests and terroristic practices.
Historical Development: From Enclosure and Colonial Exploitation to Contemporary Financialization
The imperialistic and terroristic tendencies inherent in capitalism can be traced historically to the enclosures in England between the 16th and 18th centuries, during which communal lands were privatized, displacing peasant populations and compelling them into wage labor. This process of “primitive accumulation,” as Marx described it, involved state-sanctioned violence—including evictions, punitive measures against vagrancy, and the criminalization of poverty—to forge a proletarian class subservient to emergent capitalist interests.
Far from peaceful, this formative phase established a precedent for capitalism’s reliance on coercion. Colonial plunder subsequently amplified these dynamics on a global scale. European powers, propelled by mercantile capitalism, invaded the Americas, Africa, and Asia, extracting precious metals, spices, and enslaved peoples. The transatlantic slave trade commodified human lives to sustain plantation economies, resulting in millions of deaths through forced labor and genocidal campaigns.
In India, British imperialism expropriated wealth through taxation and monopolistic practices, precipitating famines that claimed tens of millions of lives in the nineteenth century. These acts were not incidental but integral to the accumulation of capital that financed the Industrial Revolution.
Transitioning into the twentieth century, Lenin’s concept of monopoly capitalism emerged during World War I, characterized by the fusion of finance capital with industrial monopolies to partition global markets. Following World War II, this paradigm evolved into neoliberal financialization, characterized by deregulation, privatization, and the rise of international financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
During the 1980s and 1990s, structural adjustment programs imposed on countries in the Global South mandated austerity measures, the privatization of public assets, and the liberalization of markets to foreign capital. These policies frequently precipitated debt crises and social unrest. Violence remained a central mechanism in this process; for instance, U.S.-supported coups in Latin America (notably Chile in 1973) and proxy conflicts in Africa facilitated the installation of regimes amenable to resource extraction. This historical trajectory illustrates that the evolution of capitalism perpetuates terror as an instrument of capital accumulation rather than as an aberration.
Contemporary manifestations of these dynamics are evident in U.S.-involved operations in 2025, particularly in Africa, where proxy forces and strategic agreements enable resource extraction amid ongoing humanitarian crises. In Sudan, the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), ongoing since April 2023, has escalated into a complex proxy conflict involving foreign powers competing for control over Sudan’s gold, oil, and agricultural resources. While the United States has provided humanitarian assistance and advocated for increased engagement, critical analyses reveal that Western interests, including U.S. corporations, benefit from the instability that facilitates low-cost resource extraction.
Reports suggest that foreign support, ostensibly aimed at stabilizing the region, has in fact prolonged the conflict, with the U.S. indirectly enabling access to minerals amid a famine affecting approximately 25 million people.
Similarly, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), U.S.-brokered peace agreements with Rwanda in 2025 have elicited concerns regarding the exchange of security guarantees for mineral concessions. The eastern DRC, rich in cobalt, copper, and coltan—minerals essential for electronics and green technologies—is home to over one hundred armed groups, including M23, which is allegedly supported by Rwanda. A proposed agreement between the U.S. and the DRC would grant American companies stakes in strategic mining operations, potentially allowing Rwanda and M23 to control other sites, effectively substituting overt warfare with exploitative resource arrangements.
Although the U.S. has imposed sanctions on illegal mining activities, critics contend that these measures obscure deeper involvement in a proxy conflict that displaces millions and perpetuates atrocities for corporate profit. These cases exemplify state terrorism, wherein economic domination is enforced through violence, proxy alliances, and agreements that prioritize profit over peace.
The ideological underpinnings of capitalism’s imperial terror are reinforced by discourses that naturalize exploitation. Historically, racism has served to justify colonial plunder by depicting non-European populations as “uncivilized,” thereby legitimizing enslavement and territorial appropriation. In the nineteenth century, Social Darwinism provided a pseudo-scientific rationale for imperial hierarchies; in contemporary contexts, this legacy persists in xenophobic policies that frame migration from exploited regions as security threats, thereby diverting attention from systemic causes.
Similarly, “human rights” rhetoric functions as a strategic tool, often weaponized by capitalist powers to justify selective interventions. U.S.-led “humanitarian” missions, such as those in Iraq and Libya, invoke human rights violations as pretexts that obscure underlying resource-driven motives—namely, the control of oil in the Middle East and minerals in Africa.
In 2025, the persistence of this dynamic is evident: U.S. sanctions targeting traffickers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are publicly justified on ethical grounds, yet they coincide with agreements that advantage American corporations, thereby revealing a profound contradiction. Such ideological frameworks serve to fragment the global working class, fostering antagonism between labor forces in the Global North and those in the Global South, while allowing elites to amass wealth without restraint.
Analytical Perspective: The Structural Violence of Capitalism
The inherent “barbarism” of capitalism—manifested through war profiteering, environmental degradation, and artificially induced famines—is not an incidental flaw but a fundamental characteristic embedded within its imperative for perpetual growth. This system exploits global divisions, including class conflicts, racial hierarchies, and geopolitical rivalries, which function to fragment resistance and enable the continuation of imperial violence. As Rosa Luxemburg contended, capitalism endures through the “permanent occupation of new territories,” a process that inevitably engenders violence. In the context of 2025, marked by intensifying proxy conflicts and competition over resources, this structural barbarism highlights the critical necessity of reevaluating capitalism: it is inherently irreformable and necessitates revolutionary alternatives to terminate its imperialistic and terroristic dominance.
