Obviously Karl Marx got it wrong. He predicted that workers in industrialized countries would be ever more exploited and impoverished. Finally they would revolt and take over the “means of production,” ushering in a fair and equitable economic system. Unfortunately for Marxist thought but fortunately for the workers, the lives of most workers gradually improved.
How to explain this?? V.I. Lenin said the reason the lives of workers improved was because of colonialism. Counties like Britain, France, and the U.S. exploited their colonial possessions. The populations of the developed counties benefited from owning the Third World. Once Africa, Asia, and Latin America asserted their power, Lenin thought, international capitalism would be destroyed.
Didn’t happen.
Marxists then came up with the theory of “neo-colonialism.” Why “own” a colony with all the expense and military activity that accompanied colonial possessions when you could simply exploit the “Third World” with economic controls? If you can import the raw materials (copper, oil, rare earth, human labor) and sell finished products, capitalism can charge ahead.
What the Trump administration is doing in Venezuela would seem to fit the term “neo-colonialism.” We extract the oil, and a client Venezuelan government goes along with the scheme. The average American benefits from cheap petroleum imports, the company procuring the petroleum makes money, and the average Venezuelan citizen gets some table scraps.
I predict Cuba will be next.
