𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒎 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝑬𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒎𝒚

What, then, of the effects of imperialism on British economy? The main contention of Strachey’s theory, and even the heart of his theory, following his Contemporary Capitalism, is to endeavour to refute the analysis of Lenin with regard to Britain, which, following the corresponding analysis of Marx in relation to the conditions of the 19th century British world industrial monopoly, has emphasised the role of Britain’s world imperialist position as the decisive key to the entire British capitalist economy, British politics, the relatively higher standards of considerable sections of the workers in Britain, and the consequent domination of opportunism in the British Labour movement.

Strachey endeavours to argue that imperialism has at no time played such a decisive role in Britain’s economy, and that today especially, when the empire has been nearly liquidated, its importance is negligible and by no means the basis of the measure of relative economic prosperity in Britain since the war.

To prove this, Strachey offers a number of statistical calculations of a highly question character. Let us take a few for example.

First, the terms of trade. It is well known, and was already shown in the 19th century by Marx in his theory of “super-profits” that the advanced Western capi- talist countries had been able to draw special advantages from the higher prices of their exports of industrial manufactures in relation to the relatively lower prices of raw materials and agrarian imports from the primary producing countries, in most